Hill City Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Hill City, Minnesota
Lattitude: 46.98
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.7 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.6 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.3 hours per day
When trying to calculate your solar power needs there are a variety of factors to consider. Panel type and location, electricity needs, number of panels needed etc. One key to figuring out the math is factoring in the average peak sunlight hours in a day. Unlike total sunlight hours, peak sunlight hours are only when the sun is strong enough to power your solar panel. Using this number can help determine your needs to power your home or business in Hill City, Minnesota.
Knowing that the latitude of Hill City is 47.0 can be helpful for understanding total sunlight hour variance. As you approach the equator latitude approaches zero. The closer the latitude is to zero, the more consistent the daily sunlight hours are throughout the year. Total sunlight hour consistency simply makes planning for your solar power needs easier, but it is certainly not a requirement.
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.
Weather is a big determinate of average peak sun hours each day. There are many aspects of weather that can increase or lessen the peak sun hours in a day in a particular location. For example cloud coverage is a crucial variable. And more importantly, what type of cloud coverage; thin scattered clouds will have less diminishing power on the solar insolation than thick rainy storm clouds. Sometimes long periods of sunny days are rare in certain locations, this would increase average peak sun hours for that time-frame
The average daily peak sunlight hours in Hill City, Minnesota is 4.7 hours. Use this number when trying to calculate your solar needs in Hill City. As you can see above, if you were to use a 1-Axis or 2-Axis panel then the daily average would increase to 5.6 hour and 6.3 hours, respectively.