Questions & Answers

All the answers to the questions you might have.

Why has my solar tracker gone to sleep during the day?

If the tracker doesn’t receive enough sunlight for 2 consecutive hours, it will return to the flat or sleep mode. You can confirm this by checking the PAC reading on your system, it will often show zero.

How do I check how much is left in my battery system?

Take a look at the yellow screen, it shows your stored charge as a percentage.

What is a safe charge level?

Above 40%.

What is solar energy?

Solar Energy means using generating electricity from the enrgy of the sun. Solar modules convert energy from sunlight into direct current (DC) electricity.

A solar electric system is different to a solar hot water system which use the heat from the sun and surrounds to heat water. They do not produce electricity.

Photovoltaic  (PV) solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV cells are combined into modules called arrays. The number of arrays combined together determines the volume of electricity producible by a power plant.

How is a solar cell made?

The first working solar cells were constructed by Charles Fritts 1883. These prototype cells were made of selenium and achieved efficiencies of around one percent.  Following the fundamental work of Russel Ohi in the 1940′s, researchers first produced vialble solar cells in the 1954.