For the northern hemisphere south facing roofs will give you the best results from solar panels.
Solar panels south facing roof.
True south can also be calculated at noon when shadows from vertical objects run north south.
If your panels face due east or west you will loose about 9 over what the south facing panels would provide.
If the panels face west instead they get more energy during the afternoon an evening.
The flatter a south facing roof is i e.
A littlle east or west causes no problems.
In general solar panels that are oriented directly east or directly west will produce about 20 percent less electricity than if they were facing south.
Solar south or geographic south.
The closer to horizontal the better it will be for solar.
However solar panels can be orientated on any roof that faces south of either east or west.
The results backed us up on this theory showing poor solar radiation levels for south facing roofs at this steep tilt.
Even with this decrease in performance solar panels will produce enough electricity to save you hundreds of dollars a year.
We also took at look at a tilt angle of 40 for the south facing orientations mainly just to show that a south facing roof with a steep pitch is probably not a good place for solar panels.
Why orientation matters with rooftop solar.
To correct the compass reading your solar installer will calculate the magnetic declination of your site.
The direction solar panels should face is true south a k a.
You can add an extra panel if you have the room to make up the difference.
Therefore directions like southwest or southeast are fine.