South Elgin Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for South Elgin, Illinois
Lattitude: 41.9907
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.1 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.7 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.6 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in South Elgin 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 South Elgin, Illinois.
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 South Elgin is 42.0.
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.
Looking at latitude, average peak sun hours and various data can obviously help when planning for your solar power needs. The one thing you can never fully account for is changing weather. Storms, rain, cloud coverage all have an impact on solar panel capabilities.
Since we know the latitude of South Elgin we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 4.1 peak sun hours per day. 5.7 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 6.6 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.