How NOT to install solar panels! :-)

I was visiting a small rural hospital here in Haiti (in the town of Verettes, L'Artibonite) the other day and stumbled upon this nice solar water purification installation, installed by Venezuelans as a gift to Haiti after the earthquake.

They used Cuban panels (Numen) and put them on nicely elevated poles to make it more difficult to steal them (which is a major problem here).

So far so good...

However, have a close look at the photos...

The 2 arrays are overlapping and causing serious permanent shading! Quite amazing they left it like this.

Even worse, they were pointing North. Venezuela is in the Southern hemisphere, so these guys are used to pointing their panels North. Haiti is north of the equator though... :-)