17 Jan I think my roof orientation is bad for solar – should I bother?

There’s no denying that in Ireland the south facing roof is the best to have.  North facing roofs are the poor performer when it comes to solar PV energy production.  In fact, there is a drop of about 16% if your whole roof is orientated due north as opposed to due south with a 15-degree pitch or higher.   However, there are other factors at play.  The pitch of your roof plays a huge part.  Shade is the biggest issue.  So, if you have a shallow north facing roof, but with good exposure, you’ll get light on it almost as much as your south facing roof.  Clever roof mounting angles of your panels are another way to get more power.

If your roof is an east west orientation – you’ll see patterns like, good production early in the day and then again later in the day.  This pattern of production really suits milking parlours for example.  There’s a lot at play and with a well-designed system, we can maximise your real estate to get the best bang for your buck.  The best thing is to get an estimate from us.  We can do a very detailed design and run a simulation that gives you all the information you need.  You can easily calculate your return on investment (or we can help you) to see if your building is a good fit for solar power.