Amber Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Amber, Iowa

Lattitude: 42.1281

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.2 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.2 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.7 hours per day

The average peak sun hours of Amber 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 Amber. However, still knowing that the latitude of Amber is 42.1 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

Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Amber 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

Looking at latitude, average peak sun hours and various data can obviously help when planning for your solar power needs. The one thing you can never fully account for is changing weather. Storms, rain, cloud coverage all have an impact on solar panel capabilities.

For Amber the number of average daily peak sunlight hours for a fixed solar panel is 4.2 hours. If you are using a more efficient 1 or 2-axis panel then the number will increase to 6.2 hours for a 1-axis panel and 6.7 hours for a 2-axis panel.


Solar Businesses in Amber, Iowa




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