Solar Panels On East West Facing Roof
With east or west facing panels the sun will be behind the roof for half the day.
Solar panels on east west facing roof. Of course you cannot install east west facing solar panels on your roof if it does not already slant in those directions. However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west. 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. 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.
In winter when the sun is at an angle less than the pitch of the roof the panels will receive no sunlight. Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation. 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. 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.