La Yesera Electricity

Those who have read previous postings will know we have had problems with lack of power from our Solar Installation. Things have now improved after careful thought and implementing a few ideas.
Firstly, I cleaned the panels; when I checked them they were covered in fine sand. The difference in charging after being cleaned I reckoned was about 6% better, not insignificant.
Another thing was that I have installed a second smaller water tank as a header tank higher up the hill behind an olive tree. This now means I only have to pump water up to it every other day and the pump is not continually running whenever there is a tap opened or a toilet flushed. I think this has made quite a difference too but it is difficult to quantify. One further benfit has been that I have not totally buried the water supply pipe from the header tank and the sun heats the water giving hot water for nothing. We have not used any heating oil since!
I also thought about the angle of the panels to the sun at different times of the year. They were fixed at an angle which maximises sun catchment in winter only which at this lattitude is about 50 degrees. I drew a graph of optimum angle throughout the year and decided that if I change the angle by altering the rear support bracket twice a year, I can optimise charging by about 10%.
Another improvement is the addition of a 48v battery charger that I had shipped from Hong Kong. When I am pumping water from the well to the large storage tank or when I am using the deisel generator to power the house as we sometimes have to do in the winter, I will be able to charge the battery bank at the same time.