Solar Panels positioning.

Im going straight to my question.
Why south facing solar panels are best for average household.
Everywhere you always hear that south facing are the best etc. Dont install on east-west as you will waste money. This is what I hear from people and reading on websites. After while have install 5 panels on east and 5 panels on west. After nearly 3 mc of usage can say that in my opinion it is best for average household. In the very early morning 5 panels produce enough power to run my home. Mid day as usually charging battery + Washing and dishwasher. And late afternoon still have enough power for run my house. So basically at the moment from 6AM up to 8PM my home is running from solar panels. For comparison my friend have nearly south facing solar panels and he don't have this luxury running his house through entire day. At 6PM his solar panels don't produce enough power to run his home. Of course during day he produce more than me but if you add energy sell prices and for how much he need to buy his behind me. Both have similar kw system he got 14 panels and I have 10. If i will have this knowledge before i would not hesitate to install panels on east/west roof. What are yours thoughts on this system. Or maybe my friend have something wrong with his system?

I have 8 x 250W panels facing east and 8 x 250W panels facing west (4kWp). A neighbour within 100 yards has 14 x 250W panels facing south (3.5kWp) During the summer our systems perform very similarly but I would agree that the spread of usable solar is better with an east/west system. The problem is that during the winter the sun just never gets high enough in the sky at the start and end of the days so in the winter his system is much, much better than ours.

We have our 5.6kWp panels on a SE facing roof with an 8.2kW battery. this produces more electricity than we use over the year and gave us a negative electric bill last year (looking even better so far this year).

However, I believe a SW facing array would be better. For at least half of the year we need to import electricity at peak time to cook our evening meal, whereas a SW array would mean we were generating a higher level of electric at the end of the day and therefore lower our import amount.

I think SW is probably the best orientation, but an East and West split can also perform well as you describe.

The main thing for everyone to consider is that solar on any orientation that is south of East - West will almost certainly reduce your electricity bills and your carbon footprint.

My system is 2.4kw East and 4.62kw West. I have a friend a few miles away who until recently ad around 6.4kw all south facing. Only in the Summer months did I generate a fraction more, in the winter though his south facing generated more than I could. So in my vew South facing where possible wins overall based on a years worth of data. However I also say more panels the better!

There is a separate thread that includes comparisons of East/West vs South panels.

https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/535-correct-inverter-size/52

I have just done a comparison of performance using PVGIS-5 for East/West and South facing panels on a 30 degree roof slope.
For East/West facing panels, the December kWh output is between 11 and 12 % of the June output.
For South facing panels, the December kWh output is 25 % of the June output.

It is certainly a much larger drop off for East/West in Winter, so a good reason to add more panels than you would on a South facing roof.

So there are a number of factors:-

1/ With East/West it is likely that there is physical roof space for a higher total number of panels than a South only (none on North).
2/ In Summer, the East/West peak output power each day is approx 80% of South peak power with the same total number of panels. 6x400W East + 6x400W West -> approx 3840 W peak; 12x400W South -> approx 4800 W peak.
3/ Seasonal Winter drop off is more severe on East/West (see quote above).
4/ East/West provides more generation hours per day than South, but at lower power.