Quote:
Originally Posted by chaster
Good points. The question in my mind is the magnitude of the interference drag..
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Eric,if you'll go up to the search-engine,top-left of forum page,type in FLOW-IMAGES(brain food) and go to Photo Gallery-7,second row,2nd image from right.
There is a depiction of a flat plate and the magnitude of the separation and wake area.
Your panels,even if spaced at large distance to one another would still be 'inside' the wake of adjacent panels.
I'm no pro.I have done professional installs with an area photovoltaic business.They always gang the panels together onto the smallest footprint,for fixed arrays,and also tracking mounts.Nearly every home where I live has PV and we all go for the minimums with respect to spacing.
Keeping the load concentrated near the center reduces what otherwise could grow to enormous torque,as loads are applied along very long moment arms.