Hourly PV distribution at different tilts

I'm looking at SAM's Time Series report with DC Array Power hourly data selected. For south facing at any TMY2 location, I'd expect a broader bell curve for higher tilt, because a higher percentage of overall daily generation should be in the earlier morning and later afternoon. But I'm generally seeing little difference between the bell curves at 10° tilt and 40° tilt. For example, please see the attached screenshots for a random summer day. This is for the TMY2 location in Sacramento, CA at 180° azimuth. Thanks for your insights on this.

Hi Michael,

How pronounced that effect is depends on the time of year. You might use the graph on the Heat Map tab to compare those results. With the heat map you can compare the hourly output and see how the daily profile varies over the entire year.

For example, you can see that at 10 degrees, you get more output in the early morning and late evening during spring and fall than at 40 degrees. At 40 degrees, you get more output around mid-day during those months, which contributes more to the total annual output than those early morning hours at 10 degrees.

Best regards,
Paul.

Got it Paul, thank you. The Heat Map graph is excellent. I really appreciate your support.