Solar panels produce electricity year round and can power your home or business through every season. They do, however, need sunlight to produce electricity, which means that time of year has an effect on how much power your solar energy system can generate.
Keep reading to learn more about how solar panels produce energy and how the seasons impact their performance.
You can expect a lot of electricity production from your solar panels in the summer—lowering your summer energy bills and saving you money. Solar panels produce more energy in the summer than in the winter for a couple of reasons:
The days are longer during the summer, which means your solar panels are exposed to sunlight for greater periods of time and also have more time to produce electricity every day.
The sun is higher in the sky during the summer than it is in the winter, giving your solar panels access to more direct sunlight. Solar panels don’t need direct sunlight to work, but they work better in direct sunlight than they do in low-light conditions.
Summer days tend to be clearer with less overcast than there is in the winter, giving your solar panels better access to sunlight. Even though solar panels can still generate electricity on cloudy and foggy days, they tend to generate less when it’s overcast. Solar batteries can help power your home on the days that clouds, mist, and darkness get in the way.
Because solar panels in Massachusetts produce so much electricity in the spring and summer, you can also rack up a lot of net metering credit by sending your excess electricity to the grid when you have a surplus. When winter rolls around and your solar panels are producing less, the credit you’ve built up with your utility can then carry you through the colder months.
Solar panels produce more electricity in the summer, but their efficiency is often better during the winter.
Solar panel efficiency measures how much electricity a panel can produce from the sunshine that hits it. If a panel is 20% efficient, it means that panel can convert 20% of the sunlight it receives into usable electricity.
Extreme heat can reduce solar panel efficiency and limit the amount of power a panel can produce. Because of this, solar panels are most efficient on cool, sunny days and can help youtake control of winter energy price hikes!
Boston Solar is a leading solar provider near you in Massachusetts. We design our solar energy systems with Massachusetts weather in mind and make sure you’re set up for maximum energy production all year round. The residential and commercial solar panels we install offer excellent performance in many weather conditions so you can enjoy solar benefits and energy savings in every season.
Boston Solar has been empowering Massachusetts for over ten years and has completed more than 5,000 solar panel installations. If you’re thinking about going solar in the Boston area, give us a call to learn more about the benefits of solar for your home or business. We make the solar installation process easy and can help you get the most out of your investment in a solar energy system!
Generate free electricity all year long with a solar energy system! Call 617-858-1645 or contact us for a free solar panel cost estimate.
MORE INFORMATION
