Solar Panels On East And West Facing Roofs

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

Solar panels on east and west facing roofs.

However under the right circumstances it is possible to have an east west split of solar panels on a single inverter input like the diagram above imagine the left hand 3 panels facing west and the right hand 3 panels facing east and still have almost the same performance as if they were on separate strings attached to a two seperate inverter inputs. In contrast a north southern hemisphere facing roof gets sunshine from dawn to dusk. 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. And while there is some indication that facing solar panels to the west can also be quite effective for the most part those with east and west facing roofs face a challenge in installing a solar array that will.

For homes with roofs that face to the south and that have an appropriate pitch for mounting solar panels installing an efficient home solar system is fairly straight forward because both the roof orientation and angle pitch are optimal for harvesting clean energy from the sun. Solar panels should face south for any home in america to obtain maximum power generation. Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine. However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west.

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