Santa Clara Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Santa Clara, Oregon
Lattitude: 44.1035
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.1 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.3 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.5 hours per day
The average peak sun hours of Santa Clara is a crucial measurable component needed to efficiently implement a solar power system in a home or business. Put simply, peak sun hours are the hours of sunlight a day that are strong enough to be efficiently absorbed by solar panels and eventually turned into usable electricity. Not every minute of sunlight during a day is strong enough to be useful to a solar power system. Think about just minutes after the sunrises, which officially counts towards total hours of sunlight, but is usually too weak to be counted in peak sun hours because the strength of the solar insolation is not strong enough near the horizon to be absorbed and turned into electricity at an efficient rate. Times during the day like this, where the sun is out but not strong enough, are not counted as peak sun hours. In other words, the amount of peak sun hours in a location will theoretically always be less than total sunlight hours for a given day.
Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Santa Clara is 44.1. Knowing the latitude of Santa Clara 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 Santa Clara 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
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.
The average daily peak sunlight hours in Santa Clara, Oregon is 4.1 hours. Use this number when trying to calculate your solar needs in Santa Clara. As you can see above, if you were to use a 1-Axis or 2-Axis panel then the daily average would increase to 5.3 hour and 6.5 hours, respectively.