Farmington Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Farmington, New Mexico
Lattitude: 36.7559
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.2 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.6 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Farmington 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 Farmington, New Mexico.
The latitude of the location is important for measuring peak sun hours. The latitude determines how much overall sunlight there will be in a day. With a given latitude, time and date, one can accurately determine when sunrise and sunset will occur. Areas with latitudes closer to the equator will have a more consistent range of solar insolation throughout the year. Whereas areas closer to the poles will have a greater variance during the summer and winter months due to their higher latitudes.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Farmington 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
The sunrise and sunset is very predictable every day, but things like cloud coverage and weather are less predictable and vary daily and annually. If a location that is usually very sunny experiences a huge increase in storms and cloud coverage in a given year than the average peak sun hours for that day or year will probably decrease. Tall objects such as trees and buildings can block out the sun during high solar insolation times, so be sure to strategically place your solar panels to get better efficiency.
Since we know the latitude of Farmington we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 6.2 peak sun hours per day. 8 hours per day with a 1-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun from sunrise to sunset, and 8.6 hours with a 2-axis tracking mount that tracks the sun everywhere in the sky.