John and Elizabeth's Starbase "Forest Glade". Wagerup, Western Australia.
Latitude 33 degrees South.

Commissioned in June, 2002. The living quarters of the starbase are of steel frame construction, precariously balanced on a steep southern slope surrounded by large trees. hence, the power station lies across the stream, on the northern side of the valley.
Here, the shade tolerant characteristics of the UNI-SOLAR panels come into their own, for large trees surround the site, casting intermittent shadows across sections of the array in the morning and afternoon. The power loss is directly proportional to the amount of shadowing, unlike crystalline panels which dramatically lose power output with the smallest amount of shade.

Crystalline solar panels utilize "series" architecture in their construction. 36 cells connected in series. If a single cell is shadowed, it switches off, becomes resistive, and the voltage and current in that string collapses. ( like stepping on a hose ) In contrast, the UNI-SOLAR panel employs "series / parallel " architecture, comprised of a multitude of individual charging elements in parallel. If some are shadowed, the rest keep functioning. In this instance, the lords of the forest, Jarrah, Marri and Karri would have rendered an installation of crystalline panels an abject failure ! Besides, such beings hate the barons of fossildom, and their obsolete, second rate solar energy products and two faced energy policies. The Lords understand how these deciever's have tried to take over and dominate the solar power industry for the past 20 years, playing with it as a cat plays with a mouse ! Thus, John and Elizabeth would not have them power their house !!

Power System.

24 x UNI-SOLAR US-64 Advanced, thin film, triple junction photo-voltaic panels. 1536 peak watts. = to 1850 watts of crystalline panels @ 50 deg C cell temp. ( typical) Panels are all faced true North, as confines of roof would not allow splayed array, and the lords of the forest are too close to the flanks. panels are wired in "series quads", and the six quads then wired in parallel. ( 6 x 4.5 Amps x 50 volts = 1350 true charging watts )

• 1 x SELECTRONIC PWM-60 Charge regulator. In this instance we used the full control system capabilities built into the SA-42 Inverter, which incorporates its own data logger. The PWM-60 regulator is controlled by the inverter.
  
  
• 1 x SELECTRONIC SA-42. True Sine Wave Inverter. 3600 Watts continuous rating, 10,000 watts surge. The inverter has Selectronic's full energy management and control system option built into it. A remote keypad and display panel is located in the living quarters , across the stream. Selectronic inverter's are beautifully constructed. They belong in an art gallery !
  
  
• 1 x SOLAR TECH 48 Volt, 670 Amp-hour@c100, open vented, lead acid battery. ( 32,160 watt-hrs ) This equates to 6 days storage at the average daily design load of 5200 watt-hours. One would not want to go much smaller than 6 days in a hybrid system.
  
  
• 1 x SOLAR TECH 48 Volt, 50 Amp, Industrial battery charger. = 2500 watts per hour maximum charge into battery when running back up generator.

Notes.

This site presented an interesting challenge due to the surrounding forest. Elizabeth and John are extremely
Environ-Mental, and several large life forms with green crowns were spared the woodsmans axe even though they cast several large " sundial shadows of trunk" across the solar array in Winter months.
Nevertheless, the system is working well, and proves without a shadow of doubt, the superior performance of the UNI-SOLAR panels in such situations. John runs his 7 KVA Diesel generator for an hour or two a day during cloudy weather. The trees are smiling !