Shading is a major concern for solar panel installations. It causes panel hot spots as well as diminishes the output of an array.
The Solar Shading app lets a photovoltaic installer/designer complete a solar shading analysis in just a couple of minutes. The app uses your phone's compass, GPS and accelerometer to map the horizon or obstructions. Simply complete a 360 degree turn while keeping the phone lined up with the horizon.
This app gives a graphical representation of the sun path as well as a chart to see what percent of daily hours are lost per month and an optimistic output graph.
This analysis can be printed to PDF and sent to yourself or a client. Multiple shading analyses can be performed and saved to the user's SD card.
Please read the directions in the menu as the horizon mapping process may not be self evident.
Two things to note with this app:
1) Your phones SD card must be mounted for this program to function properly.
2) All of the calculations are done on the phone locally so that the app can be used in remote locations, however, this means that on devices with lower processing speeds the calculations will take a while to process.
If you are having trouble figuring out how to map the horizon please e-mail.
Recommended devices include: 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM.
Please e-mail any questions, comments or concerns. If you like the app please rate it, if not please send an e-mail and let us know why so that we can make the necessary changes.
