Black Creek Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Black Creek, Wisconsin
Lattitude: 44.4742
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.2 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.7 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 Black Creek is valuable for calculating your solar needs.
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 Black Creek is 44.5.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Black Creek 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
Another reason to consider average peak sun hours is because weather can dramatically affect the day-to-day output of solar panels. It goes without saying that a dark stormy day will produce less output than a clear sunny day. Looking at a yearly average helps account for these daily variables.
Since we know the latitude of Black Creek we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 4.2 peak sun hours per day. 5 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 5.7 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.