Solar Nerd articles about: TOU

If you live in the Northern hemisphere, solar panels will receive the most sunlight if they face south. (This is reversed in the Southern hemisphere, so if you live in Australia the preferred direction is north). If you’re a homeowner interested in solar, you might not have this option: maybe the south-facing part of your roof is interrupted by vents, skylights or gables, or is shaded by trees. West is usually the next best option (which generates electricity during the evening peak) followed by east.

To generate the maximum electricity from your solar panels, you want them pointed south (if you live in Northern Hemisphere), but sometimes you don’t have much of a choice. Most homeowners mount their solar panels on their roof and consequently only have a couple orientations to choose from. (This is also known as azimuth, where 0° means pointing north and 180° is south.) Solar panels will work if you face them east: on average, east-facing solar panels will generate about 80% as much electricity as they would if pointed directly south.

If you’re one of those people who never pays attention to their utility bill, you might assume that there’s just one price you pay for electricity. Electricity is priced by the kilowatt-hour (kWh), and if you didn’t know, one kWh is equal to using 1,000 watts (a kilowatt) of electricity for one hour. If you left your hair dryer running on high for 32 minutes, you’d use about one kWh.

If you’re a homeowner planning to install solar panels, you’ll either be placing the array on your roof, which is facing in a fixed direction, or you’ll be using a ground mount that gives you some flexibility about where to point them. Especially if you live in a city, you might not have much choice about the direction to face your panels. For example, you might have trees shading one side of your home.