Madison Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Madison, Ohio

Lattitude: 41.7722

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 3.9 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.9 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.3 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 3.9 per day can help you determine the amount of solar panels you need to install to power your home or business in Madison, Ohio.

Knowing the latitude of Madison will help estimate average peak sun hours for your area. The latitude is used to accurately estimate the time of sunrise and sunset, thus giving you the total hours of daylight each day. Once you know the total hours of daylight, you can estimate the amount of peak sun hours based on a number of variables such as weather, time of year, the angle of the solar panel.

There are a few ways to increase average peak sun hours per year for your solar power system. One way is to use a tracking mount solar panel instead of a fixed tilt solar panel. A 1-axis mount will track the sun throughout the sky from sunrise to sunset, giving your panel a more efficient facing direction towards the sun throughout the day. A 2-axis solar panel will track the sun in the sky throughout the day, but also change and follow the angle of the sun in the sky throughout the year. Both of these axis system solar panels will produce higher average peak sun hours than a fixed solar panel.

Peak sun hours are greatly affected by weather patterns. Cloud coverage is a huge factor in peak sun hours per day because heavy cloud coverage will diminish the power of the solar insolation. You can use historical climate data to estimate average cloud and weather coverage, but it will obviously vary slightly from year to year.

We can take the latitude of Madison 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, Madison will receive 3.9 average peak sun hours per day. This number can be increased to 4.9 hours by using a 1-axis tracking mount, or 5.3 hours from a 2-axis tracking mount.


Solar Businesses in Madison, Ohio




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