Home » Solar Turbine » Washington » East Farms

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.

Sunlight hits the earth directly at the equator. This is why the equator has a latitude of zero degrees. The latitude of East Farms is 47.7. Knowing the latitude of East Farms 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 East Farms 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

Looking at latitude, average peak sun hours and various data can obviously help when planning for your solar power needs. The one thing you can never fully account for is changing weather. Storms, rain, cloud coverage all have an impact on solar panel capabilities.

For East Farms the number of average daily peak sunlight hours for a fixed solar panel is 4 hours. If you are using a more efficient 1 or 2-axis panel then the number will increase to 5 hours for a 1-axis panel and 6.4 hours for a 2-axis panel.