By Alec Deacon

As you may already know, by looking at the previous articles on this topic, the quantity of sunlight that strikes your photovoltaic panel is what counts as far as the amount of produced energy is concerned. To benefit the most from sunny days, however, you need to take under consideration certain aspects, besides the place where you set the panel: the sun moves on the sky throughout the day, so there are times during the day when your panel creates less energy. However, there are solutions to this issue.

In this article I’ll show you a bit about how to mount your system in order to use the most sunlight. Another element which counts is the mounting system you have. You may not have thought about it, but there are a few methods to mount your panel.

The easiest and cheapest would be the fixed mount. This type doesn’t give your panel any mobility however, so your solar energy generator will be 100% stationary while the light source (the Sun) travelsmoves through the sky during the day. If, however, you opt-in for that you should try to understand that the panel must face south if you live in the northern hemisphere and north if you live in the southern one and that true south or north is not the same with magnetic south or north.

What does that mean? Well, it means that true south is the direction towards the southern end of the axis about which Planet Earth rotates (known as the South Pole). Magnetic south is the direction towards the south magnetic pole, some distance away from the south geographic pole.

Also, as I said in a previous post, you have to lean your panel to an angle equal to the latitude value of your city. Calculate precisely, since, after all, you are building a fixed mount, and cannot move it afterwards.

But if you feel like making something more practical, you should consider building an adjustable solar panel mount, this way you can change the angle and position if required. According to experts, it is not required that you change the angle more than twice a year (a reason for which the fixed mount could still be an option). It’s also recommended to change the tilt by +15 degrees in the winter and 15 degrees in the summer to increase the efficiency of the solar panel you built by yourself by 25%

Sure, there are also other tracking sytems which are more advanced and expensive than the first two described above. Such a mount is programmed to automatically track the path of the sun during the day to maximize the solar radiation that the solar panels receive.

However, I would not recommend spending a large amount on a advanced mount, especially if you build your first solar panel. After all, with the money you spend on a tracking mount you could just as well buy several other panels and fix them on a cheaper mount.

Alec Deacon is a DIY passionate and owner of http://www.DIYreport.com, one of the best sources of DIY projects, plans and reviews. Topics like solar panels, woodworking, aquaponics and DIY in general are covered in daily articles. Comments are always appreciated so please feel free to join and share your thoughts and ideas.