Alan B. Pearce wrote:
>
> >Incidentally, the daily power output from a solar array can be
> >significantly improved by tracking the sun - but the complexity involve,
> >along with the maintainance aspect appear to make this enhancement
> >uncommon. Come up with a cheap and reliable way of doing it and there could
> >be a significant market.
>
> One low tech way of doing this is to have a double acting piston to push the
> array back and forth. Then down each side of the array have a pipe suitably
> painted black to be heat absorbing. One pipe connects to one end of the piston,
> and the other pipe connects to the other end of the piston. The theory is the
> sun will heat the two pipes, and whatever liquid is in there will get heated.
> The array will move until the two pipes are receiving equal heat energy from the
> sun, at which point the liquid pressures on both sides of the piston will be
> equal.


Hi Alan, that's clever and I can see why it
appeals to the alternative energy people. :o)

But really, since you only need to scan the
panel through 120 degrees rotation over maybe
12 hours, how much power would this take? I
would not expect it to use more than 1% of panel
output power, probably 1/10th of 1%. Assuming
a decent quality small motor run for one second
every few minutes.
-Roman

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