How Many Solar Panels To Run The World

We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it.

How many solar panels to run the world.

A 5kw solar system which consists of 20 panels can produce an average of 7 000 kwh per year. Just 11 200 000 acres to generate 4 000 000. You will need a roof space of about 194 sq ft for a 3kw system. To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need.

So you re saying it would only take 0 6 of the surface area of the continental united states to power the entire country with renewable solar power. Starting with some conservative assumptions from a 2013 national renewable energy labs nrel report we know that it takes on average 3 4 acres of solar panels to generate a gigawatt hour of electricity over a year. How do we arrive at this number. According to a graduate thesis by technical university of braunschweig student nadine may the number of solar panels needed to supply the entire world s energy needs would fill just 25 000 square.

This is roughly equal to the area of spain. A 3kw solar system which consists of 12 panels can produce an average of 4 200 kwh per year. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. Assuming this power rating we would need to divide 2 75 tw by 350w which gives us the gigantic number of 7 85 billion 7 857 142 857 to be precise panels required.

Similarly the union territory of diu is fully run by solar power. Solar power features prominently in modi government s us 2 5 billion saubhagya scheme launched in july 2015 to electrify. A better approach is to look at real world data captured from real world solar arrays and just extrapolate from there. You will need a roof space of about 340 sq ft for a 5kw system.

The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w. Now if we cover an area of the earth 335 kilometers by 335 kilometers with solar panels even with moderate efficiencies achievable easily today it will provide more than 17 4 tw power.