Home » Solar Turbine » Arkansas » Grand Glaise

If you put your solar powered math calculator in your backpack it will turn off from the lack of sunlight needed to power the device. As you slowly open your backpack and begin to let sunlight in, the calculator will eventually turn on when the amount of sunlight is enough to power the calculator. Similarly, peak sun hours refer to the hours of they day where the sunlight is strong enough to power a solar panel. This is different from total sunlight hours, which is simply the amount of hours in a day when there is any sunlight.

Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Grand Glaise is 35.5. Knowing the latitude of Grand Glaise 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 Grand Glaise 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

Peak sun hours are greatly affected by weather patterns. Cloud coverage is a huge factor in peak sun hours per day because heavy cloud coverage will diminish the power of the solar insolation. You can use historical climate data to estimate average cloud and weather coverage, but it will obviously vary slightly from year to year.

In Grand Glaise you can look at the average peak sun hours of a fixed solar panel mount, which will be 4.8 hours. This number iis an estimate based on data of previous years. With a tracking mount in Grand Glaise you could theoretically increase the amount of peak sun hours per with a 1-axis mount, and get 5.9 hours, or a 2-axis mount and potentially increase your average to 7.1 hours.