The Daylight Sensor MUST be facing West (sunrise), but it's rotation doesn't matter.
Solar panels should be rotated such as that 0% VERTICAL rotation faces west/sunrise, and 100% VERTICAL faces east/sunset.
The Area Power Control is necessary for the circuit to stay powered during the night.
Importantly, the solar input power doesn't directly connect to any of the logic writers. This not only ensures your system doesn't lose power but also prevents short-circuiting that would burn cables.
The use of the Area Power Control hides all the modules from the rest of your system.
You could reduce the power usage and complexity of this system by using a Kit (Computer) with a Motherboard (Logic) to set the value on the memory chip and then removing the Kit (Computer) afterwards. This removes the need to do an additional math operation.
As of v0.1.1052.5350 the addition of batch writers means you no longer need to repeat a writer for each solar panel.