Trout Creek Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Trout Creek, Michigan

Lattitude: 46.4822

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.1 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.2 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.1 hours per day

The average peak sun hours of Trout Creek 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 Trout Creek. However, still knowing that the latitude of Trout Creek is 46.5 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

You will notice the difference in peak sunlight hours depending on the panel type. The more flexibility the solar panel has the efficient it can be throughout the day and the year. A fixed solar panel remains in the same position at all times. A 1-axis panel follows the sun throughout the day as it moves through the sky and eventually sets. A 2-axis panel not only tracks the daily movement, but also adjusts based on the sun's changing position in the sky throughout the year as the seasons change.

Climate in your geographical region is a major factor that will influence average peak sun hours per year. If you live in a region that does not have a lot of completely sunny days, then cloud coverage will greatly influence solar insolation on any given day. Mountains and trees may also contribute to lower solar insolation if they block the sun from your panels at any given point of the day.

Since we know the latitude of Trout Creek we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 4.1 peak sun hours per day. 5.2 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 6.1 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.


Solar Businesses in Trout Creek, Michigan




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