Incredibly your solar panels will put out their supreme amount of peak power during cloudy weather.
Cloud cover solar panel efficiency.
How the edge of cloud effect can produce more solar power than a sunny day.
This does not shut down power production however.
But depending on the cloud cover and the quality of the solar panels efficiency can drop to anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of the energy output seen on a sunny day.
The effects of clouds on a solar panel can be unexpectedly great.
An additional valuable source of solar radiation data is the determination of solar radiation from satellite images.
So there is no doubt that during thick cloud cover you lose a lot of efficiency.
There is some debate about exactly how much efficiency is lost but low thick cloud cover could take solar panels to a quarter of their normal efficiency.
Information in relation to cloud cover levels is used to provide estimates of the solar insolation at a specific location.
When clouds cover the sun light levels are reduced.
Solar power production efficiency.
Yet when the sun shines through the clouds solar panels still get direct sunlight plus light reflected from the clouds.
According to the data collected as cloud cover increases the power production efficiency decreases for all types of solar panel mounting.
The tracking solar panel appeared to be the most efficient even though it had a large decrease about 9 when the values of the cloud cover slider were changed.
For that same reason solar panels can still produce electricity on cloudy days.
A silver lining to that cloud.
Thicker cloud cover will reduce operations further.
During those peak sunlight hours your solar panels will produce power at their maximum capacity.
The thicker the clouds the less power the system will produce.
Eventually with heavy cloud cover solar panels will produce very little useful power.
The clouds impacts are more pronounced in august and july.
If there is enough light to cast a shadow in spite of the clouds your solar panels should operate at about half of their full capacity.
Indeed on 7th of august 2015 the maximum power was completely below 25 of the rated power 25 w.
It just reduces the output of energy.
Eventually with heavy cloud cover solar panels will produce really little useful power.
In a city with extreme summer heat solar is a little less efficient which is part of the reason why solar panels in cloudy san francisco can actually produce more power over a year than the slightly sunnier hotter city of sacramento.
Fortunately sunpower solar panels with a record breaking efficiency of more than 22 percent highest efficiency panels commercially available 1 use cells with a unique one of a kind design that capture a broader range of the sun s light.
Of course it is rare to have one entirely cloudy day as it is rare to have one entirely clear day.
If there is sufficient light to cast a shadow in spite of the clouds your solar panels need to operate at about half of their complete capacity.
These images provide information about the level of cloud cover in a particular region.
