Calculating Power Usage Solar Panels

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.

Calculating power usage solar panels. Other factors such as peak load shade location available panel space and seasonal use need to be taken into account. The tool works by taking your average monthly energy usage in kilowatt hours kwh. You calculate the power supplied or calculate a solar energy system output from the panel to the battery using its watts peak and exposure. We want to help you get the system that s right for you.

For the most accurate and personalized off grid system size calculation call our solar experts at 1 800 472 1142. Please note that these calculations are based on assumed power consumption of various appliances. Likewise if you wanted to account for 100 of your daily kwh consumption you would need 30 solar panels 37 kwh daily usage divided by 1 24 kwh per panel. 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.

5 hours x 290 watts an example wattage of a premium solar panel 1 450 watts hours or roughly 1 5 kilowatt hours kwh. Use a low wattage 150w and high wattage 370w example to establish a range ex. Thus the output for each solar panel in your array would. Solar panels power generation is commonly given in watts e g.

Is 5kw 5000 watts so you can use that as a benchmark if you re unclear on what your power needs will be. The power generation capacity of a solar panel is given in watts. This is a very general system size estimation. Later on by using our second battery calculator you could define the number of solar batteries connected in series and parallel if you are using the solar batteries of low voltage to build the.

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. 120 watts 18v 6 6 amps. Please note that solar panels are not 12v i repeat solar panels are not 12v. The photovoltaic pv solar panels are used in residential installations come in varying wattages from 150 watts to 370 watts per panel.

How to use a calculator to calculate how many solar panels you need. Use our power use calculator to calculate how much electricity you use in kw hours and also the likely maximum power requirement in kw. In order to calculate the below data we averaged annual kwh production in the top 12 solar states and assumed standard 250 watt panels in order to calculate how many panels you would need. How much energy does a solar panel produce.

Usually in off grid solar power systems the voltage of the battery bank is equal to the nominal voltage of the solar panels or solar panel array. To calculate the energy it can supply the battery with divide the watts by the voltage of the solar panel.