Solar Panels On East And West Facing Roofs

Can solar panels be fitted if your roof is east west facing.

Solar panels on east and west facing roofs.

I would be grateful for any thoughts suggestions on the direction to face solar panels. For homes with roofs that face to the south and that have an appropriate pitch for mounting solar panels installing an efficient home solar system is fairly straight forward because both the roof orientation and angle pitch are optimal for harvesting clean energy from the sun. However under the right circumstances it is possible to have an east west split of solar panels on a single inverter input like the diagram above imagine the left hand 3 panels facing west and the right hand 3 panels facing east and still have almost the same performance as if they were on separate strings attached to a two seperate. That s much better than most people would guess and even an east west facing roof can generate around 80 of the maximum.

You either accept that your output will be down to the sort of levels in the table above or you spend a little more money and try to maximise the your output with technology. Following on from a recent feature in pv tech power volume 14 here are the five key. And while there is some indication that facing solar panels to the west can also be. Tra sun and snow.

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. We are looking at installing a 5kw system lg neon 2 panels and fornius inverter on a double storey house and had initially thought of splitting the panels between our north east and west facing roofs so that we got production over most of the day 8 panels north 4 east and 4 west. Around the world solar developers are turning array designs on their head and choosing to go east west instead.

An example of a south west facing roof. At higher pitches the difference increases. 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. We assumed a 40 elevation for the roof.

I get asked this a lot and there isn t really a simple answer. 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.