Ranchos Penitas West Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Ranchos Penitas West, Texas
Lattitude: 27.6745
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 4.9 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 6.1 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.3 hours per day
Looking at the average peak sunlight hours in Ranchos Penitas West 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 Ranchos Penitas West, Texas.
Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of Ranchos Penitas West is 27.7. Knowing the latitude of Ranchos Penitas West 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.
Depending on your output needs, to get more out of your solar panels you can either upgrade your technology, buy more panels, or buy different tracking type panels. A fixed solar panel remains fixed at one angle throughout the year. A 1-axis panel will produce more output because it follows the path of the sun from sunrise to sunset to maximize sun exposure. Even more productive is a 2-axis panel that not only follows the sun's path throughout the day, but also accounts for the more subtle sun changes throughout the year with the different seasons.
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 take the latitude of Ranchos Penitas West and use that number to know the amount of total sunlight hours in the region from sunlight to sunset and estimate that with a fixed solar panel, Ranchos Penitas West will receive 4.9 average peak sun hours per day. This number can be increased to 6.1 hours by using a 1-axis tracking mount, or 8.3 hours from a 2-axis tracking mount.