Vail Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Vail, Arizona
Lattitude: 32.0217
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.2 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.4 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.6 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Vail 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 Vail, Arizona.
The equator has a latitude of zero while Vail has a latitude of 32.0. Any city located on the equator will receive the most sunlight throughout the year because the sunlight arrives at a perpendicular 90 degree angle to the earth at the equator. The further you are from the equator the more your daily sunlight hours can vary.
The sun moves through the sky during the day, and changes positions in the sky throughout the year as the seasons change. A fixed solar panel remains fixed in position during this movement. So, although it is effective in capturing sunlight, a 1-axis or 2-axis panel can be more efficient. A 1-axis panel tracks the sun's movement throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. In addition to that, the 2-axis panel also accounts for the movement throughout the year.
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.
Since we know the latitude of Vail we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 6.2 peak sun hours per day. 8.4 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 8.6 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.