San Pablo Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for San Pablo, California

Lattitude: 37.9629

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.8 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.8 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.7 hours per day

Peak sun hours is arguably the most important number to consider before installing your solar panels. Unlike total sun hours, peak sun hours are calculated by looking at the amount of sunlight hours in a 24 hour period that is strong enough to be absorb by a solar panel. One way to imagine peak sun hours is to think about a solar powered calculator you owned in school. If you covered the solar panel with your finger, or tried to use the calculator in the dark, the calculator would not work. As you slowly exposed the calculator to light the calculator would eventually turn on and be usable. The same is true with peak sun hours; these are the hours that your solar panels receive enough sunlight to work. Looking at the average peak sunlight hours of 5.8 per day can help you determine the amount of solar panels you need to install to power your home or business in San Pablo, California.

Although you can easily predict sunrise and sunset hours each day to the minute, looking at latitude can help with your solar planning. The closer you get to the equator the closer your latitude gets to zero. Sunlight hours on the equator are consistent throughout the entire year. Places further from the equator can have large variance in daily sunlight. For example higher latitudes can have very long summer days with lots of sunlight and very dark winters. The latitude of San Pablo is 38.0.

Since a fixed solar panel is set in one position it is ideal to place it at an angle that will expose the panel to the most sunlight throughout the year. This angle is generally the same angle of your latitude which is 38.0 for San Pablo. You do not need to strategically place a 1-axis or 2-axis panel as much as you do a fixed panel. A 1-axis panel follows the movement of the sun during the day. Additionally, a 2-axis panel also adjusts for the suns various positions in the sky 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.

We can take the latitude of San Pablo and use that number to know the amount of total sunlight hours in the region from sunlight to sunset and estimate that with a fixed solar panel, San Pablo will receive 5.8 average peak sun hours per day. This number can be increased to 6.8 hours by using a 1-axis tracking mount, or 7.7 hours from a 2-axis tracking mount.


Solar Businesses in San Pablo, California




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