How many solar panels does it take to power a house?

The number of solar panels it takes to power a home varies from one home to the next. Several factors influence the final number of panels. The most significant among these is the amount of electricity consumed and the amount of available sunlight on a daily basis.

You can figure how many panels your house will need by dividing the total watts of electricity you use each day by the number of hours of daily direct sunlight your home receives. This will tell you how many watts you need to generate each hour. You can figure approximately how much power you use each day by examining your electric bill.

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Solar panels are measured by the amount of watts they produce at peak sunlight. A 200-watt solar power panel will produce 200 watts of electricity per hour of direct sunlight. If you use 1,000 watts per hour (1 kilowatt-hour), then you need five 200-watt solar panels to compensate (ten 100-watt panels and so on).

In that case, it would take only five solar panels to power the house. Unfortunately, there is more than one hour in a day. To compensate for the majority of each day when there is no direct sunlight, you must add panels to the system. An average home requires about a 5- or 6-kilowatt solar system. While the home may only use 1 kW of power in its busiest hour, the extra panels will make up for power used at night.

This excess power produced during peak sunlight can be stored in batteries for later use, or sent back to the regional electric grid and "traded" for grid power at night. Given the numbers and panel ratings above, a 5-kW system would require 25 solar power panels to completely power the house. Just remember that these are simplistic numbers designed to provide a general idea of how many solar panels it takes to power a house. Only a sit-down between you and a solar contractor can truly get these figures right.