RagingWhisky
Member
That looks like a great site to play around with!Has anyone used the designer at SunnyDesignWeb?
I found it useful to prove that rather than use the 8 x 390W panels I was quoted for, I could, in theory, bump up the max kWp for my roof by ~20% by squeezing in 4 x 545W and 4 x 405W panels.
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It let me create 2 zones and identify the obstacles - roof windows and the dormer in 2D or 3D and with/without the map behind.
This is a lot easier than printing out the 2D roof map from the quote and then manually using a ruler to see what bigger panels would fit!
It also seems to take into account the shading for the obstacles so that should help calculate a more accurate yield.
The rest of the designer does have some limitations for amateur tinkering about with:
- only has their own inverters etc. included (which is fair enough)
- has EUR for the costs (this can be changed but not to GBP!) but I don't suppose it matters
But it does try to help with Design Suggestions such as for the inverter(s):-
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Though I'm too thick to understand fully what it is suggesting yet - still working on it.
One thing i'm surprised on, is that its completely discounting your dormer as "dead zone" ?
If you do jump into the solar 'twilight zone' definitely speak with your installer on install options for the dormer - I got funny looks, but they did it for myself (single panels on dormer approach) and it legitimately added good quality energy generation. You've got some good potential to pickup from east/west/south-ish sun, so not to be discounted!