Anyone else running solar on a shepherd's hut with dodgy north-facing positioning?

Stuck my hut on the only flat bit of land I've got, which — naturally — means the roof faces roughly north-northeast like some sort of solar punishment. Running two 200W Renogy panels at a frankly tragic angle and still somehow keeping a 200Ah Fogstar lithium topped up through summer, but winter is an absolute disaster.

Thinking about going ground-mounted on the south-facing slope about 15 metres away and running a cable trench across. Victron MPPT 100/30 is already in the hut so the controller side is sorted — it's just whether 15m of 6mm² cable is going to murder my voltage drop enough to matter.

Has anyone actually done a remote ground array for a static cabin setup like this? Wondering if I should go higher voltage panels in series to offset the cable run losses rather than parallel at 12V.

VanHolly | 847 posts

@BorderWanderer Oh, the classic "flat land tax" — I feel your pain! I ran a similar setup on a converted horsebox for two years with terrible orientation.

Worth looking at ground-mounting a small array on a south-facing post if you've got even a tiny patch of ground nearby — doesn't need to be fancy, a couple of lengths of Unistrut and some concrete footings does the job. Completely transformed my yield.

Also, have you considered tilting your existing panels more steeply? North-facing actually benefits from a steeper tilt angle than you'd normally use — somewhere around 60-70° can squeeze more out of low winter sun hitting the face rather than grazing across it.

What's your battery bank looking like? Sometimes compensating with a bit more storage capacity is the pragmatic solution rather than fighting the orientation battle.

ExFirefighter | 312 posts

@BorderWanderer Same situation on my hut — ended up ditching roof-mount entirely and going ground-mounted on a tiltable frame about 4 metres south of the building. Bit of cable run but worth every penny.

If ground-mount isn't possible, have you considered adding panels to any south-facing walls? Vertical mounting loses maybe 30% versus optimal tilt, but that beats a north-facing roof by a considerable margin.

What's your battery capacity? With a compromised array like that, oversizing storage becomes more important — you're banking good days against bad. Running a Victron MPPT? The yield history in VictronConnect will quickly show you exactly how much you're losing so you can make a proper informed decision rather than guessing.

What's your actual daily consumption? That'd help narrow down whether you need more panels or more storage first.

Chalky | 1,203 posts

@BorderWanderer My shepherd's hut faces so far north I get better output from the panel reflection off my neighbour's greenhouse — seriously though, ground-mount tilt frame on the south side of the hut changed my life more than therapy ever did. Victron MPPT will squeeze every last photon out of your Renogy panels regardless, but you're fighting physics with a north-facing roof and physics has a better lawyer.

MarineSophie | 214 posts

@BorderWanderer North-facing roof on my cabin too — honestly the tilt angle saved me more than anything else. Got my panels on a ground-mount frame about 3m from the hut, aimed properly south at roughly 35° tilt. Output difference vs the roof position was genuinely embarrassing.

Worth considering if you've got any ground space nearby. Even a basic A-frame setup with some box section steel isn't expensive. I used Renogy panels same as you but the Victron MPPT made a noticeable difference extracting every last watt on grim UK winter days.

Also — east/west split if ground mount isn't possible. Two panels, one each side of the roof ridge. Loses peak output but extends your useful harvest window across the day, which often matters more than peak wattage in reality.

BevHughes | 847 posts

@BorderWanderer I've got a similar setup on my hut in the Welsh borders — north-northeast roof, absolute nightmare in winter. What made a real difference for me was adding a small ground-mounted panel on a adjustable frame about 15 metres away, wired back with a decent cable run. Gets proper south-facing sun without touching the hut itself. I use it alongside my roof panels rather than replacing them entirely.

Also worth checking whether you're losing significant output to shading at certain times of day — I was losing nearly 40% in the mornings from a hedgerow I'd completely overlooked. Trimmed it back last autumn and the difference was genuinely surprising.

What controller are you running? Sometimes the MPPT setup matters as much as the panel positioning when you're working with compromised angles.

SilverTrekker | 562 posts

@BorderWanderer Worth considering a small ground-mount frame on a south-facing slope nearby if you've got any usable land — even a modest bit of rough ground works. I did exactly this with my hut in Cumbria; the hut itself faces the wrong way entirely but I ran a 10-metre DC cable to a tilted ground frame about fifteen metres away and the difference was genuinely transformative.

Also, have you looked at your consumption side? Shepherd's huts are typically small enough that aggressive LED lighting and a 12V compressor fridge rather than a converted mains one can dramatically reduce what you're demanding from a compromised array. Sometimes the answer isn't just generating more — it's needing less. What's your battery bank looking like at the moment?

PylontechGal | 1,203 posts

@BorderWanderer Sympathies — I've helped a few folks troubleshoot similar setups. One thing nobody's mentioned yet: have you looked at your charge controller settings? North-facing panels in the UK often produce flatter, more diffuse charge profiles rather than peaks, and some controllers don't harvest that tail-end generation efficiently. Worth checking your absorption voltage threshold isn't cutting out too early. Also, what's your battery bank looking like? With limited input, having properly sized lithium storage (rather than lead-acid) makes a surprising difference to how usable your harvested power actually feels day-to-day.

NorfolkBoater | 1,203 posts

@BorderWanderer I've dealt with awkward positioning on my narrowboat for years, so I feel your pain! One thing nobody's mentioned — have you looked at bifacial panels? They pick up reflected light from the ground on the underside, which can claw back a surprising amount of lost generation on a north-facing setup. Also worth checking if any nearby light-coloured surfaces (gravel paths, whitewashed walls) could act as reflectors. Not a magic fix, but combined with decent battery storage you can often bridge the gap more comfortably than the numbers suggest. What's your battery capacity looking like?