Seasonal Variations of Solar Generation

Production of electricity from Photovoltaic Solar Panels varies dramatically because of the elevation of the sun in the sky, as explained on the page: Optimal PV Panel Orientation .

The plot below shows the solar generation for European countries for summer and winter 2022.

For countries at high latitudes the difference between summer and winter generation is in the range of rations between 5 to 10. For southern European countries this ratio is around 2 to 3.

Beyond the summer winter variation, solar power generation has the obvious night/day variations. The significant production is inly for a few hours around mid-day when the sun is highest in the sky. The following plots show this for the example 3 countries of DE, UK and DK.

Clearly the contribution of solar power in winter is a small fraction of consumption at only a few hors of the day.