Woodstock Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Woodstock, Virginia

Lattitude: 38.8753

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.7 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.8 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6 hours per day

Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Woodstock is a valuable number for determining your solar power setup. Peak sunlight hours are only the hours a day in which the sunlight is strong enough for the solar panels to do their job. Not every hour of sunlight was created equal. For example, solar panels do not provide much use during early sunrise and sunset, and therefore you should not look at total hours of sunlight in a day, but instead focus on peak sunlight hours. Using this number will provide a much better estimate of your needs for setting up panels in Woodstock, Virginia.

The latitude at the equator of the earth is zero degrees. This is where sunlight strikes the earth most directly. Due to the earth's curved shape, sunlight hits at a various angles depending on location. As latitude increases, the further you are located from the equator and more variance you see in sunlight hours. The latitude of Woodstock is 38.9.

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.

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.

We can use previous years of data to estimate the amount of peak sun hours in Woodstock. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 4.7 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Woodstock you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 5.8 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 6 hours.


Solar Businesses in Woodstock, Virginia




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