Shadow effect of adjacent solar collectors in large scale systems

In large scale solar systems and in other cases with limited field area (such as on tops of buildings), shadowing of collectors, (thermal or photovoltaic) by their neighbours might occur during the day. This situation calls for an optimal solution of collector deployment in a given field area for maximum or desired energy. The paper deals firstly with the shadowing analysis of vertical and inclined poles and collectors (the shadow components, height and area). This useful information is used in an example of optimal deployment of collectors in a given area (which includes the tilt angle, collector size, spacing between collectors and the number of collector rows).