I've thought about this a lot, since I've been thinking about getting some solar panels. The problem in the "real" world is somewhat more complicated: 1. You may have to ignore those days of the year that are so cloudy that you don't get enough sun. 2. You may have to factor in issues like what you're generating the power for; e.g., if you're generating it for air conditioning, you may care more about power at a particular hour of the day and certain days of the year than at other times & days. As a result of these & other calculations, I keep coming back to incorporating some sort of motor control on the panels. BTW, you don't have to swivel a huge panel (which could have problems in strong winds); you could have lots of little panels with little motors. For example, there are already lots of motor controllers for security camera applications, which could conceivably be repurposed for pointing small solar panels. Now architects have already done calculations about minimize heat load from the placement of windows relative to the sun. Since most homes & windows aren't on swivels, the calculation you propose is more relevant. I believe that I heard about some research at MIT's Media Lab in collaboration with MIT's architecture dept. They were developing shades & shutters that were "powered" merely by bimetallic metals responding to the temperature. At 06:58 PM 3/10/2013, Warren D Smith wrote:

Suppose you are on an airless spherical earth. You've got a flat solar panel and can put it facing at angle Q to the ground (and toward the equator of course). Assume Q is fixed, you cannot have a swiveling panel which changes orientation during the day.

What is the best value of Q, maximizing the amount of solar energy hitting the panel, as a function of your latitude L and the Earth's axial tile angle A=23.4 degrees?

You might naively imagine Q=L is best.

-- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step)