Cottonwood Heights Solar Power Information & Peak Sun Hours
Solar Green Energy Summary for Cottonwood Heights, Utah
Lattitude: 40.6137
Sunlight
Fixed Tilt Sunlight Hours: 5.6 hours per day
1-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 7.9 hours per day
2-Axis Tilt Sunlight Hours: 8.6 hours per day
If you put your solar powered math calculator in your backpack it will turn off from the lack of sunlight needed to power the device. As you slowly open your backpack and begin to let sunlight in, the calculator will eventually turn on when the amount of sunlight is enough to power the calculator. Similarly, peak sun hours refer to the hours of they day where the sunlight is strong enough to power a solar panel. This is different from total sunlight hours, which is simply the amount of hours in a day when there is any sunlight.
Knowing the latitude of Cottonwood Heights will help estimate average peak sun hours for your area. The latitude is used to accurately estimate the time of sunrise and sunset, thus giving you the total hours of daylight each day. Once you know the total hours of daylight, you can estimate the amount of peak sun hours based on a number of variables such as weather, time of year, the angle of the solar panel.
They type of solar panel you use has an affect on the average peak sunlight hours. Some panels allow for movement, so they can track the sun as it rises in the east and sets in the west, or as the seasons change and the sun's path changes. A fixed panel remains fixed and does not have the ability to rotate, whereas a 1-axis and 2-axis panel can adjust with the sun.
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.
Since we know the latitude of Cottonwood Heights we can take the average amount of total sunlight hours and estimate that with a fixed solar panel there would be an average of 5.6 peak sun hours per day. 7.9 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.