Researchers at Saudi Arabia's Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University conducted a one-year simulation study of a fixed-tilt PV system at different azimuth angles to determine the optimal configuration for solar energy production under local conditions.
“We aimed to systematically quantify the optimal annual energy production for azimuth angles of 180°, 150°, 135°, and 120° for a fixed-tilt system in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and to evaluate the economic implications of this flexibility,” said lead author, Bashar Alfalah, to pv magazine. “The study contributes to the field of renewable energy by focusing on optimizing the performance of PV systems in arid climates. The study extends the analysis to a medium-scale system in a hyper-arid climate, providing data relevant to Saudi Arabia's solar expansion under Vision 2030.”
Alfalah is also planning to expand the research to evaluate how extreme summer temperatures in a hot desert climate affect PV performance. “In addition, the research will vary both tilt and azimuth simultaneously to find optimal pairs for this climate. The impact of soiling is another factor to investigate in the context of how azimuth affects dust accumulation,” he further explained.
Join us on April 22 for the 3rd SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference in Riyadh. The event will spotlight how solar and energy storage solutions are driving sustainable and reliable infrastructure, with a particular focus on powering the country’s rapidly growing data center sector. The researcher used the College of Architecture and Planning at his university as a case study. The building has a total area of about 8,000 m² and comprises three floors, with a roof area of 3,600 m². According to the building's facility management department, the average monthly energy consumption was 150,480 kWh. The average annual temperature in Dammam is 26.4 C. The highest shortwave radiation occurred during the summer/bright period, reaching up to 8 kWh/m², while the lowest occurred during the winter/dark period, with radiation as low as 3.7 kWh/m². Currently, the building has 704 580 W panels, tilted at 30 ° and facing south-southeast (azimuth 150 °). Using Autodesk Revit 2025 and DesignBuilder, the scientists simulated the same number of panels with the same capacity and tilt at different azimuths. Namely, the simulated azimuths were oriented at 180◦ (facing south), 135◦ (facing southeast), and 120◦ (facing southeast). “My findings differ from those reported in previous studies of temperate or cloudy regions. The results reveal no significant difference in PV energy production between south-facing panels (180°) and panels oriented up to 45° toward the east (135°),” said Alfalah. “A panel shift can cause only a 3.4% loss in energy production, whereas a 120◦ (60◦ east) shift results in a 10.55% loss. As PV panels facing south (180°) can generate 727,672 kWh of electricity, a 30° eastward orientation (150°) reduces production to 719,304 kWh, a decrease of approximately 1%.” More, according to the results, over their lifetime, panels facing south (180◦) are estimated to save over USD 1.30 million in energy bills, while panels oriented at 120◦ save about 12.31% (USD 1.14 million) less. “Analyses of a daily cycle at 180◦ and 150◦ azimuths show the highest energy output, capable of covering 69% of the building's demand in March, 46% in April, and 22% in August, respectively. In contrast, the 120◦ azimuth results in 9%, 8%, and 4% lower energy production in the same months,” the researcher said. The research work was presented in “Analyzing the effect of altering solar photovoltaic panel azimuth angles on energy production,” published in Results in Engineering. This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
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