From the example of a standard residential polycrystalline solar panel we used above we know that if one 275 watt solar panel is 18 85 square feet then 1 kw 1000 watt of panels will.
How many solar panels produce 1 kw.
Kwh savings refer to the amount of energy that your panels produce.
In order to find a range for number of solar panels we compared arizona and maine s solar panel production ratios 1 31 and 1 61 the highest and lowest in the u s.
So take 900 kwh and divide by the amount of kwh one solar panel produces over the course of a month 30kwh and you get a 30 panel installation.
We then took 11 000 kwh and divided it by the respective ratios and then divided that number by 250 the typical panel wattage.
5 hours x 290 watts an example wattage of a premium solar panel 1 450 watts hours or roughly 1 5 kilowatt hours kwh.
On the other hand dollar savings are obtained when the solar electricity production is multiplied by the kwh price.
However keep in mind that there are many factors at play here so this is really only a rough estimate.
So if you have solar panels that each produce 1 kwh of power per day you would need a full 37 solar panels to fully power your home.
It is important to understand the difference between kwh savings and dollar savings.
If we take california as an example the map shows that on average 1 kw of dc peak capacity of solar panels produces 4 5 kwh per day or 1642 kwh per year.
That said there is a simple equation to calculate the amount of kilowatt hours kwh your solar panel system will produce.
So now that we know you need to produce about 6kw of ac output we can work backwards to figure out how many solar panels you need.
Remember if you are receiving an average of four hours of usable sunshine per day and your solar panel is rated at 250 watts of power then you will need forty panels to reliably generate 1 000 kwh per month.
For the sake of example if you are getting 5 hours of direct sunlight per day in a sunny state like california you can calculate your solar panel output this way.
30 panels x 250 watts per panel equals a 7 500 watt system 7 5kw.