Unlike wind turbines, solar panels necessitate very little conditions. If you want to produce electricty from wind, you need to have a very big land where the wind blows continuously over a certain speed. However, you can utilize solar power almost anywhere where the sun shines.
Still, some locations are more lucrative for solar power than others: direction and orientation affects the efficiency of your panels. So you might wonder where in your house provides an optimal siting for PVs.
In this article, I will briefly talk about the influence of location over the efficiency of solar power.
New Mexico and Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah and Colorado are safe heavens for PV development. You all know that. But United States as a whole has terrific solar potential. Anywhere in United Stated, you can utilize solar panels. Surprisingly, USA is behind Germany and Spain in using solar power although it has greater advantage in terms of the availability of the resource.
Of course the fact that the german government supports their citizens when building solar panels in their home plays a great role here.
Micro characteristics of your place can be more important than its geographical location. Here are some tips:
- The best place to install your PV panels are often unobstructed South facing roof tops. The the faces of the panels will be exposed to direct sun light for a great period of time. However, an East-West oriented roof will do it too provided that there is no obstacles from solar exposition.
- Alternatively you can use a wall that is not overshadowed by trees or other buildings.
- A ground mounted system is another alternative you can prefer if your roof top is not suitable or if you have a shared roof.
All in all, any place where you can have direct exposure to sun light is an ideal place to install your panels to use them in full efficiency. However, to remind you that solar panels don’t need direct sunlight to work, they also work in cloudy days.
