Fort Lupton Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Fort Lupton, Colorado
Lattitude: 40.0829
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.3 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.1 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Fort Lupton 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 Fort Lupton, Colorado.
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 Fort Lupton is 40.1.
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.
Climate in your geographical region is a major factor that will influence average peak sun hours per year. If you live in a region that does not have a lot of completely sunny days, then cloud coverage will greatly influence solar insolation on any given day. Mountains and trees may also contribute to lower solar insolation if they block the sun from your panels at any given point of the day.
We can use previous years of data to estimate the amount of peak sun hours in Fort Lupton. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 5.3 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Fort Lupton you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 7.1 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 8 hours.