Hungry Horse Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Hungry Horse, Montana

Lattitude: 48.3842

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.2 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.2 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.8 hours per day

The average peak sun hours of Hungry Horse 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.

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 Hungry Horse is 48.4.

A tracking mount will increase the average peak sun hours for a solar power system. Think about a panel that is tracking the sun in the sky vs a panel that is fixed and not moving: you will see a higher efficiency ratio of productions. A 1-axis mount will track the sun from East to West from sunrise to sunset and move on a single axis of rotation. A 2-axis mount will track the Sun from East to West the same as a 1-axis mount would, but it will also track the angle of the sun in the sky as it slowly varies season to season. A 2-axis mount is more necessary in high latitude regions where the angle of the sun in the sky changes dramatically between each equinox.

Although weather predicting technology has greatly evolved over time, it is still a rather unpredictable factor that will affect the amount of peak sun hours your solar power system will receive. Cloudy days for example will usually have lower peak sun hours that a clear sunny day. And areas that usually have more average sunny days per year will probably have higher peak sun hours that areas that are often overcast or stormy.

For Hungry Horse the number of average daily peak sunlight hours for a fixed solar panel is 5.2 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 6.8 hours for a 2-axis panel.


Helpful & Interesting

Montana State Energy Tax Credits. Montana offers state solar tax credits -- 100% of the purchase and installation costs of a solar system -- up to a maximum of $500. As a credit, you take the amount directly off your tax payment, rather than as a deduction from your taxable income


Solar Businesses in Hungry Horse, Montana




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