Norfolk Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Norfolk, Connecticut
Lattitude: 41.993
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.3 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.1 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.9 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 Norfolk 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 Norfolk is 42.0. Knowing the latitude of Norfolk 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 Norfolk 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 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.
We can use previous years of data to estimate the amount of peak sun hours in Norfolk. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 4.3 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Norfolk you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 5.1 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 5.9 hours.