Tilt angle isn’t something that many homeowners think about when installing solar panels. Whether polycrystalline or monocrystalline, solar panels will generate electricity when exposed to the sun, regardless of their tilt angle. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore tilt angle. It can still affect the performance of your solar panels.
What Is Tilt Angle?
Tilt angle at the angle at which a solar panel is tilted. Also known as elevation angle, it determines the direction the solar panel will face.
Solar panels have a flat surface consisting of a photovoltaic (PV) material. As sunlight strikes this flat PV surface, they will generate electricity. Tilt angle is the verticle angle or tilt of a solar panel.
How Tilt Angle Affects Solar Panels
Tilt angle will affect how much electricity solar panels generate. With the right tilt angle, solar panels will generate more electricity. The amount of electricity a solar panel generates is influenced by many different factors. One of these factors is the tilt angle. Solar panels that directly face the sun will generate more electricity than their counterparts.
When directly facing the sun, solar panels will receive more photons. These photons will “excite” the electrons within the solar panels’ PV material, thereby generating electricity. Solar panels that don’t directly face the sun will receive fewer photos. They may still generate some electricity, but they’ll generate less electricity than solar panels that directly face the sun.
You can control the direction of a solar panel by adjusting the tilt angle. Adjusting the tilt angle so that the solar panel directly faces the sun will maximize its production of electricity.
What’s the Best Tilt Angle?
You might be wondering what the best tilt angle is for solar panels. There’s no universal tilt angle that works for all solar panel installations. The geographic region in which you install the solar panels will affect the ideal tilt angle. Your latitude, for instance, will determine the angle at which the sun faces your solar panels. You must consider your latitude when adjusting the tilt angle.
The time of year will also affect the ideal tilt angle. The direction of the sun will change as the seasons change. As a result, you may need to use a steeper tilt angle during the winter as opposed to the summer.
To generate the most electricity from your solar panel installations, you should consider the tilt angle. You can adjust the tilt angle so that your solar panels directly face the sun. And by facing the sun, they’ll generate more electricity.
