Solar Efficiency With East Facing Roof

Solar panels facing east or west won t get as much light as those on a southern facing roof.

Solar efficiency with east facing roof.

Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine. 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. If your property faces east or west panels can still generate good yields. 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.

If your roof faces east west rather than north south you have a few options. Efficiency alone isn t always the most important factor to consider when choosing the right panels for your project. Increase the south facing tilt to 15 and south facing becomes 21 better. However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west.

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. Research conducted by sheffield solar using 1kwp systems found that east west systems generated 15 less electricity than those facing south. Why orientation matters with rooftop solar. Depending on your location and roof pitch you re going to lose somewhere between 10 20 efficiency as a result of not having panels facing in a due north direction.

New solar mounting system allows east west facing roofs to go solar image. Even with this decrease in performance solar panels will produce enough electricity to save you hundreds of dollars a year. One solution is to compensate by increasing the solar collector area either using more panels or larger collectors. Can solar panels be fitted if your roof is east west facing.

Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation. The direction your roof is facing the slant style and area of your roof all weigh in on which. 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. I get asked this a lot and there isn t really a simple answer.

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.