Cerrillos Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Cerrillos, New Mexico
Lattitude: 35.4378
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.9 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.8 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.4 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Cerrillos 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 Cerrillos, New Mexico.
Knowing that the latitude of Cerrillos is 35.4 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.
A tracking mount will increase the average peak sun hours for a solar power system. Think about a panel that is tracking the sun in the sky vs a panel that is fixed and not moving: you will see a higher efficiency ratio of productions. A 1-axis mount will track the sun from East to West from sunrise to sunset and move on a single axis of rotation. A 2-axis mount will track the Sun from East to West the same as a 1-axis mount would, but it will also track the angle of the sun in the sky as it slowly varies season to season. A 2-axis mount is more necessary in high latitude regions where the angle of the sun in the sky changes dramatically between each equinox.
Peak sun hours are greatly affected by weather patterns. Cloud coverage is a huge factor in peak sun hours per day because heavy cloud coverage will diminish the power of the solar insolation. You can use historical climate data to estimate average cloud and weather coverage, but it will obviously vary slightly from year to year.
We can use previous years of data to estimate the amount of peak sun hours in Cerrillos. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 6.9 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Cerrillos you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 7.8 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 8.4 hours.