Calculate sun hours

How do I calculate peak sun hours for my solar panels?

PVWatts Calculator The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s PVWatts Calculator is an excellent tool for estimating how much solar energy your solar panels will produce. (In fact, it is the data source for our peak sun hours calculator.) To use it to find peak sun hours, first enter your address in the search bar and click “Go”.

How do I use a sun hours calculator?

Using this calculator is very simple. In the address field below, type your street address or city or zip code, or state and select the nearest match from the drop-down list. Then press submit button and you will be shown a table where the first row is the month and the second row is sun hours.

How do I enter peak sun hours?

Peak Sun Hours by Zip Code: Type the zip code into the location field. In this example, we’ll enter 32899. The calculator auto-suggests as you type so you can either continue entering the entire zip code or select the correct one. Peak Sun Hours by Address: Type the address into the location field.

How many peak sun hours are in a day?

An hour in the morning that receives an average of 500 W/m² of sunlight is equal to 0.5 peak sun hours. An hour at midday that receives an average of 1,100 W/m² of sunlight is equal to 1.1 peak sun hours. It may sound complicated, but the concept is actually relatively simple to apply.

How do you calculate a solar system's output?

Here’s the updated table including the average daily, monthly, and yearly peak sun hours for each state: To estimate the real-life output of a solar system, you can use the formula: Real Life Output = System Size * Peak Sun Hours – System Losses.

How much sun does a location get per day?

Using historical data, we can estimate the amount of sunlight we expect a location to receive per day. Then we can express this value in peak sun hours. So if, say, you live in Phoenix, AZ, you can expect to receive around 5.8 peak sun hours per day on average.