You are on page 1of 9

Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928


www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Study of optimum tilt angles for solar panels in dierent latitudes


for urban applications
Arbi Gharakhani Siraki , Pragasen Pillay
P. D. Ziogas Power Electronics Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd.,
W. Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8
Received 12 August 2011; received in revised form 2 February 2012; accepted 25 February 2012
Available online 3 April 2012
Communicated by: Associate Editor Frank Vignola

Abstract
Solar panels are one of the most promising renewable technologies for energizing future buildings. For roof top solar panel installations, knowledge of the optimum tilt angle is important to have the maximum annual or seasonal energy yield. The annual optimum tilt
angle is dependent on many factors such as the latitude of the location and the weather condition. In an urban application, the optimum
tilt angle can be aected by the surrounding obstacles. Consequently, new concerns such as shading or sky blocking eects have to be
taken into consideration. In this paper, a simple method is proposed based on a modied sky model to calculate the optimum angle of
installation for the urban applications. The obtained results demonstrate the dependency of the optimum angle of installation on the
latitude, weather condition and surroundings.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Urban buildings; Solar energy; Orientation of photovoltaic panels

1. Introduction
Environmental concerns as well as increasing demand
for cleaner energy are strong motives for further investment and research in renewable resources. Urban environments due to their high density of energy consumption are
considered to be one of the most promising locations for
installation of renewable energy technologies. Among different types of available technologies, solar panels show
promise for building integrated applications. For solar
installations, the optimum tilt angle is an important data
for each location which aects the annual energy yield of
the whole system. The optimum tilt angle is inuenced by
dierent factors such as the latitude of the location, clear Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 514 848 2424x7089; fax: +1 514 848
2802.
E-mail addresses: ar_ghar@encs.concordia.ca (A. Gharakhani Siraki),
pillay@encs.concordia.ca (P. Pillay).

0038-092X/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2012.02.030

ness index, air pollution and distribution of the sunny days


which represent the climate condition.
Numerous studies have been done to nd out a correlation between the annual optimum tilt angle of installation
and latitude of the location for dierent places around
the world. Yang and Lu (2000) employed the anisotropic
sky model and found that the yearly optimum tilt angle
in Hong Kong (with latitude of U = 22.5) is around 20
(U  2.5). Chen et al. (2005) used a genetic algorithm
searching technique to nd the optimum tilt angle for Chiayi, Taiwan (with latitude of U = 23.5). They have
reported 20 (U  3.5) as the optimum angle for that location. Hussein et al. (2004) utilized a specic simulation program and found that the optimum angle of installation in
Cairo, Egypt (U = 30) can be any angle between 20 and
30 with a small change in the outcome. Calabro`a (2009)
used a simulation tool to study the optimum tilt angle at
dierent latitudes starting from 36 to 46. They found that
the annual optimum tilt angle is almost shifted by 10 with

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928

respect to the latitude of the location (U  10). Chenga et


al. (2009) utilized a software package and they have shown
that for places located below the tropic of cancer the optimum annual tilt angle is almost equal to the latitude of the
location. However, for higher latitudes, this angle is found
to be smaller than the locations latitude and the discrepancy is increased by increase in latitude.
All these research studies proposed dierent correlations
to relate the optimum angle of installation to the latitude of
the location. However, they all suggest that, for small values of latitude, the annual optimum tilt angle is close to the
locations latitude, while for higher ones the optimum tilt
angle is smaller.
In the rst part of this paper, the cause of this phenomenon is explored by a simulation based method. In addition, the dependency of the annual optimum angle of
installation on clearness index and its annual distribution
is also presented.
All the studies found in the literature (Yang and Lu,
2000; Chen et al., 2005; Hussein et al., 2004; Calabro`a,
2009; Chenga et al., 2009; Kacira et al., 2004; Chow and
Chan, 2004; Chang, 2009, 2008; Tang and Wu, 2004) dealt
with the problem of optimum tilt angle selection without
considering the specic concerns of urban applications.
Therefore, a simple model capable of dealing with all these
concerns is required in order to nd out the optimum tilt
angle of an urban installation. This is the motive for the
second part of this paper in which a modication has been
proposed to the HDKR (the Hay, Davies, Klucher, Reindl
model) anisotropic sky model (Due and Beckman, 2006)
in order to include the eects of the surrounding obstacles
(such as adjacent buildings). Later, this modied model has
been used in a typical urban application case to illustrate
dependency of the optimum tilt angle on the surrounding
situation. The paper is arranged as follows: The methodology is presented in Section 2. In detail; in Section 2.1 basic
solar equations as well as the HDKR sky model are briey
reviewed. Then in Section 2.2, a simple modication is proposed for HDKR model to make it compatible with urban
applications. A simple neighborhood surveying approach is
presented in Section 2.3. In Section 3.1 dependency of the
optimum tilt angle to the locations latitude and the
weather condition are explored. Finally in Section 3.2,
the modied HDKR model is used to show the eect of
the surrounding obstacles on the optimum tilt angle. Based
on the achieved results, a number of conclusions are made
in Section 4 of the paper.
2. Methodology
In order to nd the optimum angle of installation for
dierent latitudes and to investigate the sensitivity of this
angle to each type of radiation as well as the other parameters, a method with a owchart shown in Fig. 1 is proposed and a program is developed based on the
equations from reference (Due and Beckman, 2006).
Since the readily available data for many locations are

1921

Take monthly average daily


insolation levels on a horizontal
surface for the desired location
Calculation of hourly total
radiation on a horizontal surface
for monthly average days
Calculation of beam and diffuse
components for each hours of
monthly average days on a
horizontal surface
Calculation of total insolation
level for each hours of monthly
average days on a tilted surface
Calculation of the annual
insolation level on a tilted surface
Comparison of the annual
insolation levels of each tilt angle
to find the optimum one
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the annual optimum tilt angle calculation algorithm.

monthly average daily insolation levels on horizontal surfaces, it is considered to be the input of the developed tool.
If data of observed daily sequences, or reference meteorological years are available, they should be used to have a
better accuracy in optimum tilt angle estimation.
In this tool, correlation of Collares Pereira and Rabl
(Due and Beckman, 2006) is utilized to calculate the
hourly insolation values from the average daily insolation
levels on horizontal surfaces. Then correlation proposed
by Erbs is used to separate the hourly diuse radiation
from the beam component on a horizontal surface. Finally,
the HDKR anisotropic sky model (Due and Beckman,
2006) is employed to estimate the insolation level received
on a tilted surface for dierent latitudes and for any desired
installation angle. Later in this paper, few simple modications to this model are proposed and applied in order to
make it compatible with urban applications.
2.1. Basic equations
Following correlation from Due and Beckman (2006)
is used to nd out the hourly insolation values (Ih) (for each
hour of the average day of the month) from the daily insolation levels (on horizontal surfaces) (Hh) as shown by:
p
cos x  cos xs
Hh
I h a b cos x
24
sin xs  xs cos xs


p
1
a 0:409 0:5016 sin xs 
3 

p
b 0:6609  0:4767 sin xs 
3

1922

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928

in which x is the hour angle of the midpoint for each 1 h


period (in an average day of each month) and xs is the sunset hour angle in radians. Eq. (2) gives the sunset hour angle of each day based on the declination angle (d) and the
latitude of the location (U).
xs cos1  tan d  tan /
2
The extraterrestrial radiation (Iex) on a horizontal surface
can be calculated by:


360n
I ex 1:367 1 0:033  cos
 cos u cos d cos x
365
sin / sin d

in which n is the number of the day, starting from 1 for the


rst day of January. Clearness index (k) can be calculated
for each hour of the average day of the month by:
Ih
4
k
I ex
Based on the value of clearness index and the Erbss correlation (Due and Beckman, 2006), it is possible to separate
hourly diuse radiation (Ih,d) from the beam radiation
(Ih,b), incident to a horizontal surface as shown by:
8
1:0  0:09k
for k 6 0:22
>
>
>
2
<
0:9511  0:1604k 4:388k for 0:22 < k 6 0:8
I h;d

>
Ih
16:638k 3 12:336k 4
>
>
:
0:165
for k > 0:8
5
Knowing the amount of hourly diuse and beam radiations
on a horizontal plane, it is possible to nd out the hourly
total insolation levels on a tilted plane (IT) using the
HDKR model. This model accounts for dierent type of
radiation including beam (IT,b), diuse (IT,d) (which
contains parts of the circumsolar diuse (IT,cs), isotropic
diuse (IT,iso) and horizontal brightening (IT,hz) components) and ground reectance (IT,ref) as shown by:

r
 
I h;b
b
 1  A  F sky sin3
I h;d
Ih
2
s 

 
1  I h;d
I ex  I h I h;d
b
 F sky sin3


I h;d
Ih
I ex
2

I T ;Hz

11

As it can be seen, the anisotropy index which is function of


the transmittance of the atmosphere for beam radiation denes the portion of the contribution of each component of
the diuse radiation. In these equations, view factor to the
sky is dened by:


1 cos b
F sky
12
2
The ground reectance radiation (IT,ref) accounts for the all
existing reectance from the surrounding environment and
it is dened by (Due and Beckman, 2006):


1  cos b
I T ;ref qg 
13
 Ih
2
The ground reectance ratio (qg) changes between 0.2 and
0.7 based on the surrounding situation (Kacira et al., 2004).
2.2. Proposed modications to the HDKR model
for urban application

Beam radiation on a tilted surface can be calculated by:

The HDKR model is an accurate sky model for normal


solar panel applications. However, for urban purposes, it is
required to apply some modications to account for the
eects of the surrounding obstacles (surrounding buildings
or trees). There are three dierent eects caused by the
adjacent obstacles. The rst one is the shading eect which
occurs in the hours when the sun is trapped behind an
obstacle with respect to the solar panel. As there is no
direct view between the sun and the solar panel, the
amount of the beam radiation and the circumsolar radiation received by the panel will be equal to zero for this specic period of the time. Based on that, the following
modications were applied to the Eq. (7) as well as Eq. (9).

I T ;b Rb  I h  I h;d

I T ;cs 1  K sh 

I T I T ;b I T ;d I T ;refl

6
7

The value of the coecient Rb for the northern hemisphere


is found from Eq. (8) in which b is the tilt angle of the solar
panel.
cos/  b cos d cos x sin/  b sin d
8
Rb
cos u cos d cos x sin / sin d
Circumsolar diuse (IT,cs), isotropic diuse (IT,iso) and horizontal brightening (IT,hz) components of the diuse radiation can be found considering the anisotropy index as
A = Ih,b/Iex and by (Due and Beckman, 2006):
I h;b
I h  I h;d
I T ;cs A  Rb  I h;d
 Rb  I h;d
 Rb  I h;d 9
I ex 
 I ex
I h;b
I T ;iso 1  AF sky  I h;d 1 
 F sky  I h;d
I ex


I ex  I h I h;d

10
 F sky  I h;d
I ex

I h  I h;d
 Rb  I h;d
I ex

I T ;b 1  K sh  Rb  I h  I h;d

14
15

The shading coecient (Ksh) is dened as the portion of the


calculation time step in which panel is under full shade. For
instance for a 1 h calculation time step, 20 min shading will
lead to a shading coecient equal to 0.33 for that specic
hour. This coecient can be estimated for dierent hours
of an average day (for each month of the year) based on
the outlines of the obstacles plotted in the solar position
plane as is shown in Section 2.3.
The second eect appears as the sky blocking phenomenon. The view to some portions of the sky is blocked due to
existence of the obstacles around the panel. Consequently,
isotropic sky and horizontal brightening emitted radiations
from the blocked portions of the sky cannot reach the surface of the panel. Therefore, it is necessary to modify the

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928

1923

sky view factor dened by Eq. (12) in order to consider this


eect. A new sky view factor is proposed by:
n
1 X
Ai
16
F sky 1  2
p i1
Ai can be either an area of the sky blocked by an obstacle
found by projection of the obstacle onto the sky as shown
in Section 2.3 or an area of the sky blocked behind the
tilted panel. In order to nd out the portion of the sky
blocked behind the tilted panel, an equation is developed
based on the trigonometric relationship that is shown in
Fig. 2.
In this gure a and c represent the altitude and azimuth
angles respectively. Based on Fig. 2, it is possible to nd
out the locations of the sky (with their altitude and azimuth
angles) that are located behind a tilted panel.
L sin b


tan a 
cos b
 Lcos
c

17

a tan1  tan b  cos c

18

By using Eq. (18), a group of curves have been plotted for


dierent tilt angles to show the locations of the sky trapped
behind a tilted solar panel. For instance a point of the sky
with azimuth angle of c = 150 and altitude angle of
a = 25 shown in Fig. 3 as P will be trapped behind
the PV panel that is tilted at an angle of b = 30.
To be sure that the proposed view factor behaves like
the conventional one in case of no obstacles, a comparison
has been made in Table 1. Thus, the sky view factors of a
tilted panel were calculated once with the proposed method
based on Eq. (16), and another time with the conventional
one using Eq. (12) assuming no obstacle around the panel.
In this case Ai in Eq. (16) is the area of the sky blocked
behind the tilted panel.
As it can be seen from Table 1, when there are no obstacles around the solar panel, the results of the proposed sky
view factor Eq. (16) are very close to those obtained from
Eq. (12). This proves the performance of the proposed sky
view factor is the same as the sky view factor of the well
accepted HDKR model in case of no obstacles.

90

L
180

0
S

-90
E

Fig. 2. Trigonometric relationship to nd out the portion of sky trapped


behind the panel.

Fig. 3. Locations of the sky trapped behind a tilted panel for dierent tilt
angles.

Combination of these curves, solar position curves and


outlines of the obstacles will aid the designer to nd out
the required coecients introduced in the modied sky
model. Later, a typical example is discussed.
Finally, the last eect comes as a result of the reectance
of adjacent obstacles. Since ground reectance radiation
accounts for all the reectance from surrounding environment, it is sensible to increase the ground reectance ratio
based on the material and reectance of the obstacles such
as buildings located in front of the panel. The eect of
changing of the ground reectance ratio on annual optimum tilt angle is discussed in Section 3 of this paper.
2.3. A simple neighborhood surveying approach to
nd Ksh and Fsky
A typical neighborhood as shown in Fig. 4 is used to
demonstrate the simple approach employed to nd the
Ksh and Fsky values.
In order to nd the shading coecient (Ksh) for an hour
of a day, the projection of the surrounding obstacles (buildings) should be found on the sun path diagram. This can be
done by picking up few important points (like corners) on
the obstacles and calculating their projection in cylindrical
coordinates onto the sun path diagram. This has been done
for two typical points (demonstrated as a and b in
Fig. 4) as shown below:
Point a:
 
30
ca tan1
19
36:86
40
!
40
aa tan1 p 38:66
20
402 302
Point b:
cb 90 tan
ab tan

1

1

20
40

116:56

20
p
402 202

21

!
24:09

22

1924

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928

Table 1
Comparison of two sky view factors (Fsky) assuming no obstacle around
the panel.
Installation
slope

Proposed Eq.
(16)

Conventional Eq.
(12)

Percentage of
discrepancy

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90

1.000
0.964
0.928
0.890
0.850
0.806
0.756
0.697
0.622
0.500

1.000
0.992
0.970
0.933
0.883
0.821
0.750
0.671
0.587
0.500

0.00
2.82
4.33
4.60
3.74
1.83
0.76
3.87
5.96
0.00

Fig. 5. Sun path diagram for U = 45 as well as outline of the surrounding


buildings for the typical example of Fig. 4.

Using this technique, the projections of the obstacles of the


Fig. 4 are drawn on the sun path diagram as shown in
Fig. 5. The sections of the sun path diagram located inside
the territory of each obstacle represent the time when the
sun is trapped behind the obstacles. The shading coecient
at a specic hour of a day can be calculated by:
K sh

T sh
60 min

For instance, for a panel with 20 tilt angle, installed in


the location of Fig. 4, the view factor to the sky can be simply derived from Fig. 6 by approximating area of the
blocked portion of the sky with help of the shown mesh
(the area of each is equal to 0.0152 rad2), as shown below:

23
F sky 1 

where the Tsh is the duration of the time in minutes that the
panel is under the full shade (in that specic hour).
As an instance, based on Fig. 5, for a period of time
between 9:00 and 10:00 in November, Tsh is approximately
30 min and thus the Ksh = 0.50. However, for the time period between 14:00 and 15:00 in October, Tsh is approximately equal to 10 min and thus Ksh = 0.17.
The sky view factor Fsky can be calculated based on Eq.
(16) and the projection of the obstacles to the sky as shown
in Fig. 6. Fsky is not time dependent, however it changes
with the tilt angle of the solar panel.

4
1 X
1
Ai 1  2 0:365 0:897 0:213
p2 i1
p

0:365  0:076 0:821

24

 A1 and A4: the area of the sky trapped behind a tilted


panel with slope of 20, thus A1 = A4 = 24  0.0152
rad2 = 0.365 rad2.
 A2: The area of the sky blocked because of the large
building, A2 = 59  0.0152 rad2 = 0.897 rad2.
 A3: The area of the sky blocked because of the small
building, A3 = 14  0.0152 rad2 = 0.213 rad2.

Fig. 4. A typical example of an urban neighborhood.

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928

Fig. 6. Blocked portion of the sky for 20 tilted panel installed in the
typical example of Fig. 4.

 Ac: The common area between A3 and A4, Ac = 5 


0.0152 rad2 = 0.076 rad2, is located behind the solar
panel as well as the small building. Thus it should be
considered only once in the calculation.
The approximate value of the sky view factor calculated
here is close to the accurate value that is shown in second
column of Table 4.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Dependency of the optimum tilt angle to locations
latitude and the weather condition
In the rst part of this section the dependency of the
optimum tilt angle to latitude of the location is investigated
without considering the eect of the weather condition.
The contributions of each type of radiation are calculated
based on the method of Fig. 1 for dierent locations with
dierent latitudes. This reveals the behavior of each type
of radiation in respect to the locations latitude. Later in
this section, the eect of the weather condition is explored
on the optimum tilt angle. In all the following calculations
the ground reectance ratio is considered equal to 0.2.
In order to investigate the sole eect of the latitude on
optimum installation angle, it is necessary to exclude the

1925

eect of the climate conditions from all the calculations.


Thus, the clearness index dened by Eq. (4) is considered
to be equal to 0.5 for all months of the year as well as all
the latitudes.
Using the tool developed for optimum angle calculation
(based on the owchart shown in Fig. 1) the discrepancy
between optimum angle of installation and the locations
latitude has been found for the ve dierent latitudes as
shown in Fig. 7.
As it can be seen from Fig. 7, the higher the latitude, the
larger the discrepancy between the latitude angle and the
optimum tilt angle. In order to nd out the cause of this
phenomenon, the contribution of the dierent components
of the total radiation is calculated for dierent installation
angles as shown in Fig. 8 for a latitude of 15 and in Fig. 9
for a latitude of 45(considering k = 0.5).
A comparison of these two gures reveals the fact that,
the diuse radiation always has its maximum value in a
horizontal installation. However, the maximum beam
radiation is achieved at an installation angle close to the
latitude angle. Since the combination of these two components creates the dominant part of the total radiation, it
makes the optimum angle smaller than the latitude.
Besides, for higher latitudes the dierence between these
two angles becomes high enough to cause a larger discrepancy between the value of the optimum angle and the locations latitude. In order to see the eect of the climate on
the results, the monthly average daily insolation levels on
horizontal surfaces have been obtained from NASA information center (Surface meteorology and Solar Energy) for
the same ve latitudes located on the meridian of 100
West as shown in Table 2.
The results of the calculations based on the real climate
conditions are shown in Fig. 10. Even with using real climate
conditions, the same trend is still observable. However, the
result for the latitude of 15 seems to be an exception to this
rule, where the optimum installation angle found to be
around 20 which is 5 more than the locations latitude.
In order to understand the reason behind this observation, the average monthly clearness indexes of the latitudes
of 15, 35 and 55 are shown in Fig. 11.
10

Table 4
Sky view factors for conditions with and without surrounding buildings.
Without buildings

With buildings

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90

1.000
0.964
0.928
0.890
0.850
0.806
0.756
0.697
0.622
0.500

0.884
0.850
0.816
0.780
0.742
0.702
0.654
0.598
0.525
0.405

Installation slope

0
15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

Latitude,

Fig. 7. The discrepancy between optimum angle of installation and the


latitude of location considering k = 0.5.

1926

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928


1800
1600

Table 2
Monthly average daily insolation levels on horizontal surfaces for latitudes
located on the meridian of 100 west.

Optimum Angle

Insolation (kWh/m2/year)

1400

Month

Latitude

1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Angle of Installation,
Beam

Diffuse

Gorund Ref.

Total

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Fig. 8. The contribution of dierent radiation types in total radiation for


U = 15, k = 0.5.

15

25

35

45

55

5.64
6.48
7.23
7.35
6.70
5.62
5.86
5.74
5.05
5.67
5.62
5.33

3.88
4.75
6.05
6.38
6.77
6.89
6.65
6.69
5.81
5.19
4.39
3.65

3.01
3.60
4.93
6.25
6.51
7.04
7.11
6.30
5.28
4.40
3.17
2.65

1.89
2.62
3.75
5.20
6.00
6.74
6.66
5.74
4.43
3.07
1.76
1.58

0.84
1.74
3.11
4.66
5.53
5.83
5.50
4.65
3.02
1.81
0.99
0.55

55
50

Optimum Tilt Angle,

opt

1600

Insolation (Kwh/m2/year)

1400

Optimum Angle

1200
1000
800

45

40
35
30
25
20

600

15

400

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

Latitude,
200
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Fig. 10. Optimum angle of installation for 5 dierent latitudes on the


same meridian (100 west).

Angle of Installation,
Diffuse

Ground Ref.

0.8

Total

Fig. 9. The contribution of dierent radiation types in total radiation for


U = 45, k = 0.5.

As it can be seen from Fig. 11, latitudes of 35 and 55


(on the meridian 100 west) have at clearness index curves
that shows an almost similar climate conditions for all
months of the year in that location. However, for latitude
of 15, a huge dierence is observed between winter months
and the summer months (49). The lower clearness indexes
in summer months lead to the lower portion of the extraterrestrial radiation to reach the earths surface in that location. Consequently, this gives a privilege to the winter
months and thus the optimum angle is declined towards
winter months. The contribution of the dierent components of the total radiation is shown in Fig. 12 for the latitude of 15 and longitude of 100 west, using the real
climate condition.
In conclusion, for the locations with almost the same
weather condition (the same clearness index) during a
whole year, it is possible to claim that for small values of
latitude, the optimum angle is close to the locations

Average Monthly Clearness Index

Beam

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

10

11

12

Months

Latitude of 15

Latitude of 35

Latitude of 55

Fig. 11. The clearness indexes of latitudes 15, 35, and 55 on the meridian
(100 west).

latitude, while for the higher ones the optimum angle is


smaller. However, the climate condition with signicantly
variable monthly clearness index values can considerably
inuence this rule as shown for the place located on

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928


2500

Insolation (kWh/m2/year)

2000

Optimum Angle

1500

1000

500

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Angle of Installation,
Beam

Diffuse

Ground Ref.

Total

Fig. 12. The contribution of dierent radiation types in total radiation for
U = 15 and real climate condition.

latitude of 15 and longitude of 100 west. Therefore the


latitude of the location as well as the weather condition
during the calculation period should be considered for
selection of the optimum tilt angle.
3.2. Dependency of the optimum tilt angle to surrounding
situation in an urban environment
The same neighborhood as shown in Fig. 4 is used here
to show the eects of the surrounding obstacles on the optimum installation angle of a solar panel. The location of
this neighborhood is chosen to be on the latitude of 45
north and longitude of 100 west.

1927

In order to use the proposed method to calculate the


optimum tilt angle for the panel installed in the illustrated
situation in Fig. 4, it is required to nd out the shading
coecients for each hour of the average day (during a
whole year) as well as the sky view factors for dierent tilt
angles. The values of the shading coecients are calculated
based on the comparison of the sun path diagram and the
rough outline of the buildings as shown in Fig. 5 and they
are tabulated in Table 3.
The sky view factors are calculated accurately with a
program based on the accurate computation of the blocked
areas using the method discussed in Section 2.3. The results
are shown for 10 dierent installation angles and they are
compared with the cases where the eects of surrounding
buildings are ignored. This is done to observe the magnitude of the error caused by ignoring the eects of the obstacles. In these calculations, the ground reectance ratio is
considered to be equal to 0.2 for both cases.
As it can be seen from Table 4, the proposed method
creates the opportunity to nd out the sky view factors in
a more accurate manner in case of an urban application.
These factors can be signicantly smaller in comparison
to the standard view factors (introduced by Eq. (12)) where
building eects are not considered. Employing the shading
coecients, the new sky view factors and the proposed
method, the optimum angle of installation was calculated
for the neighborhood. The comparison between application without any obstacle (shown with index 1) and the
one that contains buildings (shown with the subscript
2) has been shown in Fig. 13.
As it can be seen, due to the eects of the surrounding
buildings both beam and diuse components were declined.

Table 3
Monthly average shading coecients for the shown typical neighborhood.
Time

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

0:001:00
1:002:00
2:003:00
3:004:00
4:005:00
5:006:00
6:007:00
7:008:00
8:009:00
9:0010:00
10:0011:00
11:0012:00
12:0013:00
13:0014:00
14:0015:00
15:0016:00
16:0017:00
17:0018:00
18:0019:00
19:0020:00
20:0021:00
21:0022:00
22:0023:00
23:0024:00

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.54
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.55
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.27
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.28
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.93
1.00
1.00
0.94
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.63
0.64
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.26
1.00
1.00
0.33
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.96
1.00
0.69
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.09
1.00
1.00
0.53
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.92
0.93
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.14
0.15
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.16
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.17
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.47
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.48
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.62
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.63
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1928

A. Gharakhani Siraki, P. Pillay / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 19201928


1800
1600

op2

Beam
1
Diffuse1

op1

Insoltion ( kWh/m2/year)

1400

Gound Ref.1
Total

1200

Beam

1000

Diffuse2
Ground Ref.

Total2

800
600
400
200
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Angle of Installation,

Fig. 13. Eect of the obstacles on optimum tilt angle for U = 45 and
meridian of 100 west.

Researchers claim that for small values of latitude, the


optimum annual tilt angle is closer to the locations latitude, while for the higher ones, it is smaller in comparison
to the latitude. In this paper the reason behind these observations has been explored, based on the contribution of the
dierent components of the total radiation while excluding
the climate conditions eect. It was shown that where the
monthly clearness indexes are almost the same during a
year, the above mentioned claim is always valid. However,
climate conditions with signicantly variable monthly
clearness indexes can considerably inuence this rule as
shown for a specic place located on the latitude of 15
north and longitude of 100 west. Therefore both the latitude and the climate condition should be considered for
calculation of the optimum tilt angle. In addition, a simple
modication is proposed to the HDKR model to make it
compatible for urban applications. The proposed method
has been applied to a typical urban case and the result
reveals the dependency of the optimum tilt angle to the
surrounding obstacles. In conclusion, in addition to the latitudes and the weather conditions, the inuence of the
surrounding obstacles on optimum tilt angle should be
considered when choosing the installation angles. It should
be observed that not only the optimum tilt angle is
inuenced by the obstructions but also the optimum
azimuth.
References

Fig. 14. Eect of the ground reectance ratio on optimum angle of


installation for U = 45 and meridian of 100 west.

Besides, the installation angle in which the maximum value


of the beam radiation was achieved is shifted from 45 to
30. In addition, the optimum angle of installation is found
to be around bopt2 = 33.1 (instead of bopt1 = 37.7). Thus,
due to the existence of the surrounding buildings, the solar
panel should be tilted towards a atter angle to have a
higher annual energy yield.
To observe the eect of the ground reectance ratio on
the annual optimum tilt angle, calculations have been done
for the same surrounding conditions with dierent ground
reectance ratios starting from 0.2 to 0.7. The results have
been shown in the Fig. 14.
As was expected, higher ground reectance ratio leads
to higher optimum tilt angle. This means, for instance, if
a building with glazed facade is placed in front of the solar
panel, the annual optimum tilt angle will be increased.
4. Conclusions
Knowledge of the optimum tilt angle is important to
obtain the highest possible annual or seasonal energy yield.

Calabro`a, E., 2009. Determining optimum tilt angles of photovoltaic


panels at typical north-tropical latitudes. J. Renew. Sust. Energy 1.
Chang, T.P., 2008. Study on the optimal tilt angle of solar collector
according to dierent radiation types. Int. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. 6.
Chang, T.P., 2009. The Suns apparent position and the optimal tilt angle
of a solar collector in the northern hemisphere. J. Sol. Energy 83,
12741284.
Chen, Y., Lee, C., Wu, H., 2005. Calculation of the optimum installation
angle for xed solar-cell panels based on the genetic algorithm and the
simulated-annealing method. IEEE Trans. Energy Convers. 20, 467
473.
Chenga, C.L., Jimenez, C.S.S., Lee, M., 2009. Research of BIPV optimal
tilted angle, use of latitude concept for south orientated plans. J.
Renew. Energy 34, 16441650.
Chow, T.T., Chan, A.L.S., 2004. Numerical study of desirable solar
collector orientations for the coastal region of South China. J. Appl.
Energy 79, 249260.
Due, J.A., Beckman, W.A., 2006. Solar Engineering of Thermal Process,
third ed. Wiley, New York.
Hussein, H.M.S., Ahmad, G.E., El-Ghetany, H.H., 2004. Performance
evaluation of photovoltaic modules at dierent tilt angles and
orientations. Energy Convers. Manage. 45, 24412452.
Kacira, M., Simsek, M., Babur, Y., Demirkol, S., 2004. Determining
optimum tilt angles and orientations of photovoltaic panels in
Sanliurfa, Turkey. J. Renew. Energy 29, 12651275.
Surface meteorology and Solar Energy, A renewable energy resource web
site (release 6.0) <http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sse/>.
Tang, R., Wu, T., 2004. Optimal tilt-angles for solar collectors used in
China. J. Appl. Energy 79.
Yang, H., Lu, L., 2000. The optimum tilt angles and orientations of PV
claddings for building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) applications. J.
Sol. Energy Eng. 129, 253255.

You might also like