Horn Lake Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Horn Lake, Mississippi

Lattitude: 34.9512

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.9 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.8 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 per day can help you determine the amount of solar panels you need to install to power your home or business in Horn Lake, Mississippi.

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 Horn Lake. However, still knowing that the latitude of Horn Lake is 35.0 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

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 35.0 for Horn Lake. 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.

Since we know the latitude of Horn Lake we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 5 peak sun hours per day. 5.9 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 6.8 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.


Solar Businesses in Horn Lake, Mississippi




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