Home » Solar Turbine » Mississippi » Natchez

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.

Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Natchez is 31.5. Knowing the latitude of Natchez 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 Natchez 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

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.

Since we know the latitude of Natchez we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 5.2 peak sun hours per day. 6.2 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 7.2 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.