Garden Farms Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Garden Farms, California
Lattitude: 35.4158
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.7 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.6 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.9 hours per day
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.
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 Garden Farms is 35.4.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Garden Farms 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 Garden Farms you can look at the average peak sun hours of a fixed solar panel mount, which will be 5.7 hours. This number iis an estimate based on data of previous years. With a tracking mount in Garden Farms you could theoretically increase the amount of peak sun hours per with a 1-axis mount, and get 7.6 hours, or a 2-axis mount and potentially increase your average to 7.9 hours.