Cardiff-by-the-Sea Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California
Lattitude: 33.0217
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.7 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.1 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.8 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 Cardiff-by-the-Sea is valuable for calculating your solar needs.
Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Cardiff-by-the-Sea is 33.0. Knowing the latitude of Cardiff-by-the-Sea can help you plan for your solar panel setup, as the larger the latitude the more variance you will see throughout the year for total daily sunlight hours.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Cardiff-by-the-Sea 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 a big determinate of average peak sun hours each day. There are many aspects of weather that can increase or lessen the peak sun hours in a day in a particular location. For example cloud coverage is a crucial variable. And more importantly, what type of cloud coverage; thin scattered clouds will have less diminishing power on the solar insolation than thick rainy storm clouds. Sometimes long periods of sunny days are rare in certain locations, this would increase average peak sun hours for that time-frame
Since we know the latitude of Cardiff-by-the-Sea we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 5.7 peak sun hours per day. 7.1 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 8.8 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.