To get these numbers we used high and low panel production ratios to calculate how many solar panels are needed on average.
How many solar panels to charge the world.
The typical homeowner will need 28 34 solar panels to cover 100 of their energy usage dependent on location and roof size.
A total of 51 42 billion solar panels would be needed to power the entire world on solar energy.
In 2009 the land art generator initiative sponsored a study to determine just how many solar panels would be needed to supply the world energy demand in 2030.
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.
How do we arrive at this number.
To get this level of solar panel output from your installation you ll need about eight 250w solar panels to generate enough juice to power your electric car every day.
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.
A better approach is to look at real world data captured from real world solar arrays and just extrapolate from there.
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.
The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w.
5 hours x 290 watts an example wattage of a premium solar panel 1 450 watts hours or roughly 1 5 kilowatt hours kwh.
To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need.
Thus the output for each solar panel in your array would.
Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants.
We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it.
They undertook this research as part of their ongoing mission to educate the public about renewable energy of all kinds including solar and wind energy especially.
One solar panel produces about 1 24 kwh per day.
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.