How Much Sun Does My Roof Get

How much sunlight does your roof get on average.

How much sun does my roof get.

How much sun needs to hit my roof. Google s project sunroof gives building by building details and now has data for parts of all 50. Understanding how much sunlight falls on a home s roof can help a homeowner make decisions about roofing materials insulation and the placement of solar panels. Easy to use tools allow you to construct your own scene and automatically plot the shadow results.

Calculating the amount of sunlight. Because the seasons and weather conditions affect the amount of sunlight hitting your roof and the amount of sunlight also varies on the time day you can t use just the solar panel ratings to predict how. Your roof needs to get enough sun as we said above to power your solar panels. Better still do it a few times throughout the year.

Project sunroof is a solar calculator from google that helps you map your roof s solar savings potential. Learn more get an estimate and connect with providers. This brief equation shows how sunlight and a solar panel s specifications turn into the amount of power generated. The rooftop temperature results from two different properties.

Top production occurs when solar panels face south a tilt angle of 30 to 45. We add in local factors and compute your home s sun number score that will range between 0 100. Additionally available sunlight varies by location. So to do this test your best bet when you re home for an entire day is to check your roof each hour and record how much sun is shining on it.

You need a sunny roof to benefit from solar panels but yours may be sunnier than you think. The nrel national renewable energy laboratory has some excellent solar maps 5 to determine average daily sun rays across the united states. How big are the solar panels and how efficient are the solar cells at converting energy. Sun number calculates the amount of solar radiation for every square meter of your roof.

The ability of the material to reflect the sun s energy back into the atmosphere called solar reflectance and the amount of heat the material rejects instead of absorbs called thermal emittance both are measured on a scale from 0 to 1 with higher scores translating into cooler roofs.