Solar Efficiency With East Facing Roof

I get asked this a lot and there isn t really a simple answer.

Solar efficiency with east facing roof.

In general solar panels that are oriented directly east or directly west will produce about 20 percent less electricity than if they were facing south. You either accept that your output will be down to the sort of levels in the table above or you spend a little more money and try to maximise the your output with technology. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. Solar panels facing east or west won t get as much light as those on a southern facing roof.

If your roof faces east west rather than north south you have a few options. I did a quick check using nrel s pvwatts tool and it looks like in placentia ca there s about a 10 difference in favor of flat south facing panels over east facing panels installed on a 30 pitched roof. Why orientation matters with rooftop solar. New solar mounting system allows east west facing roofs to go solar image.

You may not need the most efficient solar panels if you have enough roof space for less efficient but more cost effective panels. Tra sun and snow for homes with roofs that face to the south and that have an appropriate pitch for mounting solar panels installing an efficient home solar system is fairly straight forward because both the roof orientation and angle pitch are optimal for harvesting clean energy from the sun. Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine. Increase the south facing tilt to 15 and south facing becomes 21 better.

Can solar panels be fitted if your roof is east west facing. The direction your roof is facing the slant style and area of your roof all weigh in on which. If your property faces east or west panels can still generate good yields. Even with this decrease in performance solar panels will produce enough electricity to save you hundreds of dollars a year.

How can an east facing system produce anywhere near 80 of the energy of the same north facing system considering that when the sun is at the best angle for the panels it is probably far from its highest trajectory and have lower illuminance. However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west. Panels mounted on a standard pitch roof facing east or west will produce approximately 15 less output than panels mounted on a south facing roof of a standard pitch. One solution is to compensate by increasing the solar collector area either using more panels or larger collectors.

Research conducted by sheffield solar using 1kwp systems found that east west systems generated 15 less electricity than those facing south.