Lancaster Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours

Solar Green Energy Summary for Lancaster, Wisconsin

Lattitude: 42.8473

Sunlight

Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.7 hours per day

1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.1 hours per day

2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.9 hours per day

The amount of hours from sunrise to sunset is equal to the total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period. Similarly, peak sun hours are the amount of total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period that are strong enough to provide power from being captured by a solar panel. Not every hour of sunlight delivers the same amount of energy resources. The sunlight at sunrise does not provide as many resources as the amount of sunlight mid-day. Thus, looking at the average peak sunlight hours for Lancaster is valuable for calculating your solar needs.

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 Lancaster is 42.8.

Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Lancaster sky. The suns position in the sky also changes throughout the year with the seasons. A fixed solar panel does not accommodate for these changes. However, a 1-axis panel rotates and follows the sun’s path during the day. A 2-axis panel both follows the sun’s daily path as well as the seasonal differences

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 take the latitude of Lancaster 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, Lancaster will receive 4.7 average peak sun hours per day. This number can be increased to 5.1 hours by using a 1-axis tracking mount, or 5.9 hours from a 2-axis tracking mount.


Solar Businesses in Lancaster, Wisconsin




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