Sandia Park Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Sandia Park, New Mexico
Lattitude: 35.1648
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.9 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.7 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.2 hours per day
The amount of hours from sunrise to sunset is equal to the total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period. Similarly, peak sun hours are the amount of total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period that are strong enough to provide power from being captured by a solar panel. Not every hour of sunlight delivers the same amount of energy resources. The sunlight at sunrise does not provide as many resources as the amount of sunlight mid-day. Thus, looking at the average peak sunlight hours for Sandia Park is valuable for calculating your solar needs.
Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Sandia Park is 35.2. Knowing the latitude of Sandia Park can help you plan for your solar panel setup, as the larger the latitude the more variance you will see throughout the year for total daily sunlight hours.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Sandia Park sky. The suns position in the sky also changes throughout the year with the seasons. A fixed solar panel does not accommodate for these changes. However, a 1-axis panel rotates and follows the sun’s path during the day. A 2-axis panel both follows the sun’s daily path as well as the seasonal differences
Weather is a big determinate of average peak sun hours each day. There are many aspects of weather that can increase or lessen the peak sun hours in a day in a particular location. For example cloud coverage is a crucial variable. And more importantly, what type of cloud coverage; thin scattered clouds will have less diminishing power on the solar insolation than thick rainy storm clouds. Sometimes long periods of sunny days are rare in certain locations, this would increase average peak sun hours for that time-frame
For a fixed mounted solar panel in Sandia Park, meaning that the solar panel will not track the sun in the sky, once can expect about 6.9 average peak sun hours per day. A 1-axis mount would increase this number to 7.7 hours per day because the panel would be facing the sun throughout the day. A 2-axis system that tracks the sun in the sky every day of the year would get approximately 8.2 hours per day in Sandia Park.