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At Solar Street Lights Australia, we have built our own solar street light simulator.
Our simulator gets solar data from the BOM.
We compare our simulator to the readings from our lights and we find that it is very accurate.
All solar panels in the southern hemisphere should be facing north. However, sometimes due to obstacles creating shadows the solar panel it will be more efficient facing North West or North East.
Ideally, in Melbourne, the solar panel should be tilted to 52°. However, not all systems are able to tilt to 52°. Some systems stay flat.
If temperatures exceed 45° then the efficiency of the solar panel is reduced by around 20%
The dirt accumulation on the solar panel over time. In fact, solar panels should be cleaned regularly for maximum performance.
From trees or buildings on the Solar Panel throughout the day.
We do allow for some loss due to the resistance of wires, the length of the wires and the connectors in our simulator, however, we cannot know for certain the thickness and the length of the wires used in every system that we simulate.
Not all solar panels are the same, some solar panels use what can be described as a type of plastic that becomes cloudy over time, thus reducing efficiency. In our simulator we assume all solar panels are in good condition.