4 ms·

Especially for hot and sunny areas solar is insane. At mid day, max heat, you get the peak production and can run your AC at full throttle. That enables you to

Especially for hot and sunny areas solar is insane. At mid day, max heat, you get the peak production and can run your AC at full throttle. That enables you to efficiently work at nice temperatures.

healthy_throw 6mo ago
Heat reduces solar production, ideally you have very sunny environment with about 25C / 77F.
- adrianN 6mo ago
  Panels are cheap, efficiency is not that important.
- patall 6mo ago
  Why is that always posted without stating the magnitude of the effect? The numbers that you find online are around 15% relative loss at 60°C vs. 25°C panel temperatur (I remember a HN comment reporting 12% comparing peak April to peak July). That is significant, but not world changing, especially for AC.
  - Gud 6mo ago
    What about panel degradation?
    - defrost 6mo ago
      There are 30 year old still functioning panels in Australia. Buried in that longevity, is an observation that a fifth of panels degrade faster than expected The long tail appears on graphs showing the degradation rate per year of the panels, indicating that up to 20% of all samples perform 1.5 times worse than the average. See (Uni NSW study) Cracking the ‘long tail’ problem: new research targets hidden solar panel issue (2026) - https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/01/research-targets-long-tail-solar-panel-issue https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/01/research-targe... and discussion: Maximising time in the sun: how to maintain and repair solar panels to make them last (2026) - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/13/maximising-time-in-the-sun-how-to-maintain-and-repair-solar-panels-to-make-them-last https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/13/maxim... This is more about the lifetime of many PV panels in Australia (temps to 45 C so far) not specifically about PV panels with many hours at > 50 C.
    - mixermachine 6mo ago
      It exists and does degrade panels but the time horizon is pretty wide. Real world data shows something like 0.5% to 0.7% degregation per year on average. At the start the degregation is higher and but it slows down with age. So a 20 year old panel might be at around 80% in the worst case. Often they are in much better shape. This seems like a pretty good deal to me.
- dyauspitr 6mo ago
  Marginally. Between 77F and 100F you only lose about 5%, so you still get 95% of the stated max efficiency. It’s basically negligible and not really relevant.

Especially for hot and sunny areas solar is insane. At mid day, max heat, you get the peak production and can run your AC at full throttle. That enables you to efficiently work at nice temperatures.

healthy_throw 6mo ago

Heat reduces solar production, ideally you have very sunny environment with about 25C / 77F.

adrianN 6mo ago
Panels are cheap, efficiency is not that important.
patall 6mo ago
Why is that always posted without stating the magnitude of the effect? The numbers that you find online are around 15% relative loss at 60°C vs. 25°C panel temperatur (I remember a HN comment reporting 12% comparing peak April to peak July). That is significant, but not world changing, especially for AC.
- Gud 6mo ago
  What about panel degradation?
  - defrost 6mo ago
    There are 30 year old still functioning panels in Australia. Buried in that longevity, is an observation that a fifth of panels degrade faster than expected The long tail appears on graphs showing the degradation rate per year of the panels, indicating that up to 20% of all samples perform 1.5 times worse than the average. See (Uni NSW study) Cracking the ‘long tail’ problem: new research targets hidden solar panel issue (2026) - https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/01/research-targets-long-tail-solar-panel-issue https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/01/research-targe... and discussion: Maximising time in the sun: how to maintain and repair solar panels to make them last (2026) - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/13/maximising-time-in-the-sun-how-to-maintain-and-repair-solar-panels-to-make-them-last https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/13/maxim... This is more about the lifetime of many PV panels in Australia (temps to 45 C so far) not specifically about PV panels with many hours at > 50 C.
  - mixermachine 6mo ago
    It exists and does degrade panels but the time horizon is pretty wide. Real world data shows something like 0.5% to 0.7% degregation per year on average. At the start the degregation is higher and but it slows down with age. So a 20 year old panel might be at around 80% in the worst case. Often they are in much better shape. This seems like a pretty good deal to me.
dyauspitr 6mo ago
Marginally. Between 77F and 100F you only lose about 5%, so you still get 95% of the stated max efficiency. It’s basically negligible and not really relevant.