Ridgemark Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Ridgemark, California
Lattitude: 36.8082
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.9 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.3 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.3 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Ridgemark is a valuable number for determining your solar power setup. Peak sunlight hours are only the hours a day in which the sunlight is strong enough for the solar panels to do their job. Not every hour of sunlight was created equal. For example, solar panels do not provide much use during early sunrise and sunset, and therefore you should not look at total hours of sunlight in a day, but instead focus on peak sunlight hours. Using this number will provide a much better estimate of your needs for setting up panels in Ridgemark, California.
Knowing the latitude of Ridgemark will help estimate average peak sun hours for your area. The latitude is used to accurately estimate the time of sunrise and sunset, thus giving you the total hours of daylight each day. Once you know the total hours of daylight, you can estimate the amount of peak sun hours based on a number of variables such as weather, time of year, the angle of the solar panel.
The sun moves through the sky during the day, and changes positions in the sky throughout the year as the seasons change. A fixed solar panel remains fixed in position during this movement. So, although it is effective in capturing sunlight, a 1-axis or 2-axis panel can be more efficient. A 1-axis panel tracks the sun's movement throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. In addition to that, the 2-axis panel also accounts for the movement throughout the year.
Weather is one of the major culprits that will cause inconsistent total peak sun hours for any given day. The sunrise and sunset will always be predictable every day, but the weather is hard to predict and cloud coverage can greatly diminish the efficiency of a solar power system on any given day. On the bright side, a location that is known to have cloudy weather a majority of the year could have unexpectedly more sunny days, so it can go both ways.
By taking the latitude of Ridgemark one can get a close estimate of the amount of average peak sun hours per day for the geographical area. It varies with technology and the type of solar panel mount you use, but for a fixed mount solar panel in Ridgemark one can expect close to 5.9 average peak sun hours per day. With a 1-axis tracking mount you would get 7.3 hours per day, and 8.3 hours per day with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.