Maricopa Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Maricopa, Arizona
Lattitude: 33.0447
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.6 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.4 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.5 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Maricopa 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 Maricopa, Arizona.
The latitude of the location is important for measuring peak sun hours. The latitude determines how much overall sunlight there will be in a day. With a given latitude, time and date, one can accurately determine when sunrise and sunset will occur. Areas with latitudes closer to the equator will have a more consistent range of solar insolation throughout the year. Whereas areas closer to the poles will have a greater variance during the summer and winter months due to their higher latitudes.
Depending on your output needs, to get more out of your solar panels you can either upgrade your technology, buy more panels, or buy different tracking type panels. A fixed solar panel remains fixed at one angle throughout the year. A 1-axis panel will produce more output because it follows the path of the sun from sunrise to sunset to maximize sun exposure. Even more productive is a 2-axis panel that not only follows the sun's path throughout the day, but also accounts for the more subtle sun changes throughout the year with the different seasons.
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 Maricopa. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 6.6 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Maricopa you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 8.4 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 8.5 hours.