I have not noticed any commercial or residential solar panel installations that adjust the angle of the panels to maximize production. I know this is done on some installations, but not others. Google's response was a bit sketchy.

Are any of you seasonally adjusting your panels?

If so, how much do you think you gain?

Not here, our angle isn't ideal but at Thailand's low lattitude there's not really much difference through the year.

You can feed your data into PVwatts https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ to get an idea of the theoretical gain.

In reality, panels are so cheap now that, unless space is at a premium, just adding more panels is cheap and easy.

Rather than adjusting the angle of my panels, I fitted panels at all angles.

I got so many questions about it that I made a video to try and explain it.

Given the plummeting cost of servos and actuators and whatnot, how much it would cost to direct the panels in real time.

12 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Given the plummeting cost of servos and actuators and whatnot, how much it would cost to direct the panels in real time.

I don't think the running cost would be very significant at all, but the cost of building it or importing it to Thailand is another question.

I found that trying to be one of the first to do something in Thailand is never easy or cheap.

That explains why I don't have videos on my geothermal system or my energy recovery ventilation system.

I don't know, it seems like it would not take that much. If you have a rectangular array bisected with a center axle, rotavating it would not be that much of a challenge

Actuators and control electronics for both single and dual axis trackers are readily available on Lazada.

The question is - Is the extra energy you generate going to payback the cost in a reasonable time vs just spending the $$$ on extra panels?

EDIT If you don't fancy fabricating the hardware there are quite a few options on AliBaba. Pricing is, er, less than cheap.

【Free Bracket】12V 1000N Linear Actuator 400MM Stroke Sola...

Free Bracket 12V1000N Linear Actuator 400MM Stroke Solar Tracker Motorisation Motor 90mm/s Linear Motor Telescopic Rod

(XGON) Dual Axis Solar Tracker Controller Sun Tracker Aut...

XGON Dual Axis Solar Tracker Controller Sun Tracker Automatic Tracking Controller System Platform Tracking

With panels being as cheap as they currently are, how about a passive tracker, same idea as @Bandersnatch has used.

You may have to fiddle with the angles to get the best compromise output..

Panels are cheap, but real estate is not cheap. My lot is 20m X 30m, and half of that is house, the roof of which does not lend itself handily to panels.

At this point, I'm thinking about a 4m X 4m X 12m out-building with a solar roof. I could use a nice shop...

19 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Are any of you seasonally adjusting your panels?

5% difference, so not worth the effort.

Of course, this thread has got me thinking how to get more panels into the space we don't have.

One could add panels and a single-axis tracker to one of our walls that looks roughly south-east and has no shading until after 1PM.

That could add some early morning production before the car-port really gets going.

We currently don't really need the extra production but ...

7 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Of course, this thread has got me thinking how to get more panels into the space we don't have.

One could add panels and a single-axis tracker to one of our walls that looks roughly south-east and has no shading until after 1PM.

That could add some early morning production before the car-port really gets going.

We currently don't really need the extra production but ...

Mirrors...

15 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Mirrors...

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

With panels being as cheap as they currently are, how about a passive tracker, same idea as @Bandersnatch has used.

You may have to fiddle with the angles to get the best compromise output..

I have that passive "tracker" on a 45° sloping roof, 7.2kwp to the east and 7.2kwp to the west.

My power output curve is of course not flat as in this picture, it is a bell curve (or half sinewave) peaking at midday.

2 minutes ago, lom said:

I have that passive "tracker" on a 45° sloping roof, 7.2kwp to the east and 7.2kwp to the west.

My power output curve is of course not flat as in this picture, it is a bell curve (or half sinewave) peaking at midday.

Could you post a production graph for a clear day please. Real world data is always better than theoretical.

8 hours ago, Crossy said:

Could you post a production graph for a clear day please. Real world data is always better than theoretical

w

8 hours ago, Crossy said:

Could you post a production graph for a clear day please. Real world data is always better than theoretical.

Couldn't find a beautiful full curve so you have to imagine the curve after midday, it is just the reverse of the morning part. It is not hot enough right now for us to have such a high consumption that the batteries are not full around midday.

A better half sinewave / bell curve of 16 panels in East and 16 panels in West

I have 8.5 Kw of panels that were all facing directly north at about a 20% angle. I took half of them and put them on a frame I had built on the carport and face them directly south at about 45%. Was expecting a huge improvement! Not the case - only about 10%.

Luckily I have didn't need the extra power and it was more of an experiment than anything else. I will only use about 11,000 Kw this month. Also thinking it is a good idea to get as many panels off the roof over living areas and put them over carports and patios so I have no water leak concerns. I didn't have the carport or patio when solar was installed.

14 minutes ago, atpeace said:

I have 8.5 Kw of panels that were all facing directly north at about a 20% angle. I took half of them and put them on a frame I had built on the carport and face them directly south at about 45%. Was expecting a huge improvement! Not the case - only about 10%.

Luckily I have didn't need the extra power and it was more of an experiment than anything else. I will only use about 11,000 Kw this month. Also thinking it is a good idea to get as many panels off the roof over living areas and put them over carports and patios so I have no water leak concerns. I didn't have the carport or patio when solar was installed.

For TH, since near the equator, southern facing panels should be at the 5-10° angle, which is close to what our roof is.

Just a slight pitch, and our west facing are about the same, though more pitch would probably be better, facing west. ...

8 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

For TH, since near the equator, southern facing panels should be at the 5-10° angle, which is close to what our roof is.

Just a slight pitch, and our west facing are about the same, though more pitch would probably be better, facing west. ...

Darn, I need to reduce the angle. Maybe that is why facing them south had a minimal impact. Well they are on the carport so it is an easy fix.

2 minutes ago, atpeace said:

Darn, I need to reduce the angle. Maybe that is why facing them south had a minimal impact. Well they are on the carport so it is an easy fix.

Curious, what are all the water containers for?

2 minutes ago, atpeace said:

Darn, I need to reduce the angle. Maybe that is why facing them south had a minimal impact. Well they are on the carport so it is an easy fix.

We've generate the max, 8.8kW, that our 8kW inverter will handle, put out. Using 9.72kW worth of PV, 18 x 540

For my main solar ( have some tiny legacy installations :)) I have 7,700 Kw of solar that produces ~6Kw max and at 10 am this morning was producing 4.6kw. Not bad IMO but not sure. I never thought I would ever use 1100 Kw but I will this month. Water pumps and fountains hog energy!

11 hours ago, atpeace said:

I have 8.5 Kw of panels that were all facing directly north at about a 20% angle. I took half of them and put them on a frame I had built on the carport and face them directly south at about 45%. Was expecting a huge improvement! Not the case - only about 10%.

Luckily I have didn't need the extra power and it was more of an experiment than anything else. I will only use about 11,000 Kw this month. Also thinking it is a good idea to get as many panels off the roof over living areas and put them over carports and patios so I have no water leak concerns. I didn't have the carport or patio when solar was installed.

I live in a rural area with a lot of solar systems, all of them pumping water for crops, mainly sugarcane and cassava. All the systems have the panels facing south; our system is the same, it seems to be the recommended way

I built our system panels mounted on an old trailer. I looked at Google, which said for our province, Lopburi, mount the panels at a 14-degree angle, which it said was the optimum angle, for us, which I did. It works well. We have a problem with surrounding trees limiting the time of use (9 -9.30 am - 4pm).

been working 2 years now so far, no problems

On 4/16/2026 at 2:52 AM, atpeace said:

Curious, what are all the water containers for?

Yeah, i had the same question - lol

If they're 1000litre tanks i count 22, that's a lot!

2 hours ago, PJ71 said:

Yeah, i had the same question - lol

If they're 1000litre tanks i count 22, that's a lot!

https://ecohousethailand.com/water/

7 hours ago, PJ71 said:

Yeah, i had the same question - lol If they're 1000litre tanks i count 22, that's a lot!

4 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

https://ecohousethailand.com/water/

If you have large garden, or growing food, you go through water fast if not having a well. From the snapshot ...

We have about 10 X 2000 L tanks now, along with a 1000 L tank, I think. Last house had about 12 tanks (2k L & one 1k L), I think. That house, water was only available certain times of the day and overnight, so stored as much as possible, since having small pool and large garden. Still wasn't enough to water the 2 rai the house sat on. Did keep the 'front' garden and hedge wall watered though.

We can easily run up a 1-2k baht monthly water bill if not using rain water. Our tanks are low end, uninsulated. We go into dry season full up with over 20k liter stored. Make sure we have at least one tank full, as there's always that pending drought around this time of year.

One village we lived it use to ration water during later part of dry season. Without storing water overnight, we wouldn't have had enough for what we did water.

Solar being an added plus, as if using rain water, means your running water pump more than you want, as gravity fed will only get you so much pressure when tanks at ground level. Always had one on 2nd floor level, so during power cuts, we had water, when not having solar.

First house only had 2 tanks, one elevated, since having a well, and was enough during power cuts.

DOS do tanks up to 100,000 liters, but for something large that size I think I would build it in concrete

2 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

DOS do tanks up to 100,000 liters, but for something large that size I think I would build it in concrete

The tanks are easier to keep clean, of fungus, mold & bacteria free. If have one large concrete tank, then it a harder issue. Our pool at 2nd house was only 15-18k liter, depending how full, so trying to store 36k liters, wouldn't exactly be cheap either.

6 X 6m X 1m deep waterproof concrete tank wouldn't be cheap to build, and a pain to maintain. If going off for any reason, then need to drain & sanitize the all storage area. Concrete surface not the easiest to do.

Even our crappy blue tanks were ~4500 baht each, but still cheaper than build one storage tank.

We (wife) cleaned all tanks this year, first in ~3 years use. We didn't add any chemicals, bleach or chlorine prior to, since using in garden & greenhouse mainly.

We take all our water from a 3 rai lake. We pump into 2 of 2,000 liter tanks and from there into 3 of 2,000 liter tanks after going throw 2 big filter towers.

That feeds 7 houses, each of which has a storage tank (ours is 3,000 liters). We have big blue filters before and after that tank to make sure we never get grit in the thermostatic shower mixers.