Knollwood Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Knollwood, Texas
Lattitude: 33.6892
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.6 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.1 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.1 hours per day
The amount of hours from sunrise to sunset is equal to the total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period. Similarly, peak sun hours are the amount of total sunlight hours in a 24 hour period that are strong enough to provide power from being captured by a solar panel. Not every hour of sunlight delivers the same amount of energy resources. The sunlight at sunrise does not provide as many resources as the amount of sunlight mid-day. Thus, looking at the average peak sunlight hours for Knollwood is valuable for calculating your solar needs.
Although you can easily predict sunrise and sunset hours each day to the minute, looking at latitude can help with your solar planning. The closer you get to the equator the closer your latitude gets to zero. Sunlight hours on the equator are consistent throughout the entire year. Places further from the equator can have large variance in daily sunlight. For example higher latitudes can have very long summer days with lots of sunlight and very dark winters. The latitude of Knollwood is 33.7.
Throughout the day the sun obviously moves throughout the Knollwood 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
Another reason to consider average peak sun hours is because weather can dramatically affect the day-to-day output of solar panels. It goes without saying that a dark stormy day will produce less output than a clear sunny day. Looking at a yearly average helps account for these daily variables.
We can use previous years of data to estimate the amount of peak sun hours in Knollwood. A fixed tilt mount for example will receive 5.6 average hours per day. For more efficiency for your system in Knollwood you could use a 1-axis tracking mount and increase your daily peak sun average to 7.1 hours, or even further with a 2-axis panel to get an average of 8.1 hours.