Hands on Practical Experience

Today is the shortest day of the year, with the sun at its lowest angle at noon. Using only photovoltaic solar power, today I get the least potential for energy. It's less cloudy than usual, so I'll get some power, but a tall building a block south of mine blocks the sun for most of the morning. Actually, low buildings do too. Here's a schematic illustration: Here's a more detailed drawing. I looked up the peak angle for New York City on the winter solstice: just under 26 degrees. I didn't realize it was that small a number. I was surprised to find that on the summer solstice, the sun only peaks at just below 73 degrees. I thought it was closer to overhead. To…

The winter solstice is in one month. During the summer if I need to charge, I can go to the roof any time from around 8am to 8pm, weather permitting. This time of year, the sun only rises high enough to charge from about 9am to maybe 3pm. It's cold. It's windier so I can't leave the panels alone because if the wind catches them, they blow like a sail. As usual, what I'm writing about here is love, not solar panels, the environment, the earth, or global warming, except that helping them comes as a side effect. I'm not climbing to the roof and standing in the cold for my health, for some abstract "environment," or to "save the planet." I may be solving…