Solar Panels On East West Facing Roof

Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation.

Solar panels on east west facing roof.

If you went with a professional solar installer they probably had a good reason to install panels facing east rather than west. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. 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. Of course you cannot install east west facing solar panels on your roof if it does not already slant in those directions.

If an east west split of solar panels is desired where some panels are facing east and some facing west then normally those panels would be placed on separate strings and a two input inverter would be used. 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. Technically east facing panels can get as much sun as west facing ones as long as there are no other issues like morning fog or clouds or shade. 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.

With east or west facing panels the sun will be behind the roof for half the day. 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.