How Many Solar Panels To Power The Us

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 power the us.

After all we don t have dual suns that permit us to soak up solar energy 24 hours a day and there will be inevitable interruptions in power relay due to maintenance or any number of incidents. Pv panels on just 0 6 of the nation s total land area could supply enough electricity to power the entire united states. How many solar panels do i need to power my house. American solar power offsets over 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year which is like planting almost 1 2 billion trees.

Other western states such as arizona and hawaii also rank among the leaders in small scale solar power in the united states. Consumes around 4000 billion kwh of electricity. 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. 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.

This means an astounding consumption of 12 000 kwh per year per capita. However it is an interesting thought to consider the total approximate cost of these panels compared with what the united states government spends every year on everything else if one approximates each panel to cost 250 the total cost would be 767 billion. How much are 21 250 square miles. 4 pv can also be installed on rooftops with essentially no land use impacts.

This is derived from the fact that every year the u. There are over 1 47 million solar panels in use across the contiguous 48 states according to satellite machine learning from researchers at stanford. That is a lot of solar panels. The yellow square is approximately 21 000 square miles.

Solar s abundance and potential throughout the united states is staggering. Homeowners point to a variety of reasons for considering solar panels. Map courtesy of google maps. California is expected to require solar panels on most new houses starting in 2020.