Solar Panels East West Facing Roof

I would be grateful for any thoughts suggestions on the direction to face solar panels.

Solar panels east west facing roof.

We assumed a 40 elevation for the 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. I get asked this a lot and there isn t really a simple answer. At lower pitches say 30 the east west facing panels perform slightly closer to south.

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. An example of a south west facing roof. That s much better than most people would guess and even an east west facing roof can generate around 80 of the maximum. 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.

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. Of course you cannot install east west facing solar panels on your roof if it does not already slant in those directions. 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. Can solar panels be fitted if your roof is east west facing.

However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west. Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine. 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. 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.