Solar Panels On East Facing Roof

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

Solar panels on east facing roof. In winter when the sun is at an angle less than the pitch of the roof the panels will receive no sunlight. However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west. Of course you cannot install east west facing solar panels on your roof if it does not already slant in those directions. 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.

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. One solution is to compensate by increasing the solar collector area either using more panels or larger collectors. 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. It really depends on your home and your roof but adding panels to an unshaded west facing roof can be a great move.

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. Solar panels facing east or west won t get as much light as those on a southern facing roof. 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. 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 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. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine.