Solar Efficiency With East Facing Roof

If your property faces east or west panels can still generate good yields.

Solar efficiency with east facing roof.

Increase the south facing tilt to 15 and south facing becomes 21 better. 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. Why orientation matters with rooftop solar.

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. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. 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.

I get asked this a lot and there isn t really a simple answer. 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. You may not need the most efficient solar panels if you have enough roof space for less efficient but more cost effective panels. 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.

Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation. 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. Efficiency alone isn t always the most important factor to consider when choosing the right panels for your project. Even with this decrease in performance solar panels will produce enough electricity to save you hundreds of dollars a year.

Solar panels facing east or west won t get as much light as those on a southern facing roof. The direction your roof is facing the slant style and area of your roof all weigh in on which. Research conducted by sheffield solar using 1kwp systems found that east west systems generated 15 less electricity than those facing south. Can solar panels be fitted if your roof is east west facing.

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.