How Many Solar Panels To Power The Usa

Obviously wind energy wouldn t be the only form of primary energy in the usa.

How many solar panels to power the usa.

According to wood mackenzie the us is likely to install 3 million solar panels in 2021 and 4 million panels in 2023. This is derived from the fact that every year the u. 767 762 000 000 watts 250 watts per panel 3 071 048 000 total panels. There are over 1 47 million solar panels in use across the contiguous 48 states according to satellite machine learning from researchers at stanford.

This means an astounding consumption of 12 000 kwh per year per capita. How much are 21 250 square miles. Requires about 4 petawatts of electricityover one year to run life as normal. The total number of solar installations in the us is on its way to get more than double in the next 5 years and it will consolidate the industry and provide economic strength.

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. The yellow square is approximately 21 000 square miles. About 7 86 billion solar panels would be needed to power the u s. Just 11 200 000 acres to generate 4 000 000.

It is also reported that total electricity consumption for the united states during 2012 was 3 694 650 million kwh million kilowatt hours. The seia report tallies all types of solar energy and in 2007 the united states installed 342 mw of solar photovoltaic pv electric power 139 thermal megawatts mw th of solar water heating 762 mw th of pool heating and 21 mw th of solar space heating and cooling. To put this into context 1 petawatt equals about 1 billion million watts. Consumes about 4 petawatt hours of electricity per year we d need about 13 600 000 acres or 21 250 square miles of solar panels to meet the total electricity requirements of the united states for a year.

Map courtesy of google maps. American solar power offsets over 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year which is like planting almost 1 2 billion trees. Solar hydro geothermal and biofuels will also play roles with solar being at least equal to wind generation.