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.

How many solar panels to run the world.

You will need a roof space of about 340 sq ft for a 5kw system. This is roughly equal to the area of spain. The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w. We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it.

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. Similarly the union territory of diu is fully run by solar power. You will need a roof space of about 194 sq ft for a 3kw system. 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. Just 11 200 000 acres to generate 4 000 000. 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. Cochin international airport seventh busiest in india is the first one in the world to run entirely on solar power handling more than 1 000 flights a week.

Dividing the global yearly demand by 400 kw h per square meter 198 721 800 000 000 400 and we arrive at 496 804 500 000 square meters or 496 805 square kilometers 191 817 square miles as the area required to power the world with solar panels. 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. 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. A 3kw solar system which consists of 12 panels can produce an average of 4 200 kwh per year.

How do we arrive at this number. To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need.