How To Determine Solar Panel Size Needed

Follow along to calculate the amount of solar panels your specific home will need.

How to determine solar panel size needed.

A typical american home will need 14 36 solar panels to cover their power bill and at least 227 square feet of rooftop space to accommodate the solar panels. So the input voltage of your inverter will depend on the inverter s power or watt rating. 17 42 panels to generate 11 000 kwh year. If you re considering a 5kw system that s between 15 and 20 solar panels that will require anywhere between 25 5 34m2 of roof space.

For inverters with a relatively small amount of power like 100 watts the voltage will be 12v 24v and 48v. Based on a ten hour day of light the calculation is simple. In the example above you would need 24 solar panels to account for 80 of your average consumption 29 6 kwh daily usage divided by 1 24 kwh per panel. Use the average insolation value from section 2 step 2 for the hours to determine how many kw you need your solar system to generate per day daily kwh hours kw e g.

For correct solar system sizing. Calculate energy needs plug the figure from section 1 step 3 daily kwh into the following calculation. The roof size available for setting up the solar panel would need to be ascertained in square feet. Use a low wattage 150w and high wattage 370w example to establish a range ex.

1 000 watt hours 10 hours sunlight 100 watt solar panel. 12 4 3. Based on those two values they can estimate the system size in kilowatts. Why we recommend a larger system.

Based on the total kilowatts and the rated watts per panel the calculator can determine how many are needed. The reality is that most summer days give about 15 hours of sunlight and winter you get about 4 5 hours of sunlight. Daily kwh average sun hours x 1 15 efficiency factor dc solar system size for example if you live in new mexico you average six peak sunlight hours per day. As a guide you ll need 4 x 250w panels or 3 x 330w for every 1kw of your solar system.

Then divide the kw output by your panel s efficiency to get the estimated number of solar panels you ll need for your system. You can calculate how many solar panels you need by multiplying your household s hourly energy requirement by the peak sunlight hours for your area and dividing that by a panel s wattage. You ll need 6 2 kw dc according to the formula. The size available needs to be divided by the size of the solar panel that is going to be used.

Orientation plays an important role especially if the roof size is small or not of a usable geometric shape. Determine how many solar panels you ll need one solar panel produces about 1 24 kwh per day.