Solar Panels On East Facing Roof

If you look back to systems that were built a few years ago you would typically find them facing south says david wedepohl director of communications and markets at the german solar industry association bsw.

Solar panels on east facing roof.

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. Why orientation matters with rooftop solar 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. You also can mount solar panels on roofs that face east or west on the roof of another building like a barn or garage or on the ground. Panels facing north east provide will produce around 5 less electricity than north facing solar panels and their production through the day will be between that of north facing modules and east facing ones.

With east or west facing panels the sun will be behind the roof for half the day. Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. It really depends on your home and your roof but adding panels to an unshaded west facing roof can be a great move.

Of course you cannot install east west facing solar panels on your roof if it does not already slant in those directions. Solar arrays that are situated east west can squeeze in more rows and panels and therefore a greater generation capacity than their south or north facing cousins. If your roof faces east west rather than north south you have a few options. If the east facing panels still produce plenty of energy from the morning and early afternoon sun the west facing panels would likely produce energy from mid morning on.

Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine. However a new solar panel mounting system aims to alleviate some of the challenge of putting solar on east west roofs or non south facing roofs as it were and could open up the door for more potential solar homeowners to get the benefits of a solar array on their roof. One solution is to compensate by increasing the solar collector area either using more panels or larger collectors.