For most australians south is the worst direction modules can face and some people consider installing panels facing south almost as large a mistake as installing them upside down.
Solar panels south east facing roof.
Your solar panel orientation is very important when it comes to maximising the amount of electricity that your solar panels will produce.
The flatter a south facing roof is i e.
In sydney south facing solar panels will typically produce around 28 less energy than north facing panels and the steeper the roof the less.
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.
The closer to horizontal the better it will be for solar.
The results backed us up on this theory showing poor.
A south south east or south west facing roof is ideal for homes in the uk.
As we re in the northern hemisphere the best solar panel orientation is obviously south but.
Why orientation matters with rooftop solar.
What happens if your roof isn t facing south.
Just make sure there s no obstructions that would cause shade on the panels and you re golden.
We also took at look at a tilt angle of 40 for the south facing orientations mainly just to show that a south facing roof with a steep pitch is probably not a good place for solar panels.
Solar panel orientation in the uk.
One solution is to compensate by increasing the solar collector area either using more panels or larger collectors.
At higher pitches the difference increases.
We are looking at installing a 5kw system lg neon 2 panels and fornius inverter on a double storey house and had initially thought of splitting the panels between our north east and west facing roofs so that we got production over most of the day 8 panels north 4 east and 4 west.
Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine.
At lower pitches say 30 the east west facing panels perform slightly closer to south.
However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west.
If your roof faces east west rather than north south you have a few options.
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.
Panels on a south facing roof even laid flat will almost invariably produce more electricity that east facing panels.
Here s a quick example of a south west facing roof in london.
Solar panels facing east or west won t get as much light as those on a southern facing roof.
Even with this decrease in performance solar panels will produce enough electricity to save you hundreds of dollars a year.
An example of a south west facing roof.
We assumed a 40 elevation for the roof.