Alhambra Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Alhambra, California

Lattitude: 34.084

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.2 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.3 hours per day

The average peak sun hours of Alhambra is a crucial measurable component needed to efficiently implement a solar power system in a home or business. Put simply, peak sun hours are the hours of sunlight a day that are strong enough to be efficiently absorbed by solar panels and eventually turned into usable electricity. Not every minute of sunlight during a day is strong enough to be useful to a solar power system. Think about just minutes after the sunrises, which officially counts towards total hours of sunlight, but is usually too weak to be counted in peak sun hours because the strength of the solar insolation is not strong enough near the horizon to be absorbed and turned into electricity at an efficient rate. Times during the day like this, where the sun is out but not strong enough, are not counted as peak sun hours. In other words, the amount of peak sun hours in a location will theoretically always be less than total sunlight hours for a given day.

If you open the newspaper in the morning or watch the weather channel on the news you can get an accurate prediction of sunrise and sunset each day for Alhambra. However, still knowing that the latitude of Alhambra is 34.1 can be a helpful number for your solar panel setup and planning. The closer your latitude is to zero the closer you are to the equator. At the equator you find the most consistent total sunlight hours throughout any given day of the year. As your latitude increases you can see larger discrepancies of daily sunlight hours during the year. For example, having very long summer days and very short and dark winter days

There are a few ways to increase average peak sun hours per year for your solar power system. One way is to use a tracking mount solar panel instead of a fixed tilt solar panel. A 1-axis mount will track the sun throughout the sky from sunrise to sunset, giving your panel a more efficient facing direction towards the sun throughout the day. A 2-axis solar panel will track the sun in the sky throughout the day, but also change and follow the angle of the sun in the sky throughout the year. Both of these axis system solar panels will produce higher average peak sun hours than a fixed solar panel.

Peak sun hours are greatly affected by weather patterns. Cloud coverage is a huge factor in peak sun hours per day because heavy cloud coverage will diminish the power of the solar insolation. You can use historical climate data to estimate average cloud and weather coverage, but it will obviously vary slightly from year to year.

In Alhambra you can look at the average peak sun hours of a fixed solar panel mount, which will be 6.2 hours. This number iis an estimate based on data of previous years. With a tracking mount in Alhambra you could theoretically increase the amount of peak sun hours per with a 1-axis mount, and get 7 hours, or a 2-axis mount and potentially increase your average to 8.3 hours.


Solar Businesses in Alhambra, California




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