Sizing a solar panel system to your home s electric usage can be done by taking look at your energy bills over a year.
Power per square foot on electric solar panel.
In order to find a range for number of solar panels we compared arizona and maine s solar panel production ratios 1 31 and 1 61 the highest and lowest in the u s.
In the three scenarios listed above all of the homes were of different sizes yet used the same amount of electricity.
Number of solar panels per square foot of roof space.
Thus the output for each solar panel in your array would.
That translates to just over 15 watts per square foot.
Solar panel cost per watt is now only 2 50 in some states making a 6kw system only 10 500 after claiming the solar tax credit.
Solar panel cost per square foot 5.
5 hours x 290 watts an example wattage of a premium solar panel 1 450 watts hours or roughly 1 5 kilowatt hours kwh.
How much energy does a solar panel produce.
Home the estimated electricity consumption is 700 kwh.
The us census bureau determined that single family homes have an average area of 2467 square feet when dividing these values you obtain 0 35 kwh per square foot assuming 0 35 kwh for a 2 000 sq.
Drill down to see who s offering the best solar panel prices in your state or city.
At this point you can use the calculation procedure described in the previous section.
System cost 15 000.
We then took 11 000 kwh and divided it by the respective ratios and then divided that number by 250 the typical panel wattage.
For a 300 watt solar panel with dimensions 64 inches x 39 inches 1 61 meters squared or 17 31 square feet the peak instantaneous electricity production per square foot at stc is 14 58 watts per square foot.
System size 5 kilowatt.
As you can see there is no exact solar panel cost per square foot.
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.
System size kw square footage needed for low efficiency 16 square footage needed for medium efficiency 18 square footage needed for high efficiency 22 5 kw.
But at 20 watts per square foot a system rated to produce 2 kilowatts would cover roughly 150 square feet while a 3kw system would take up about 225 square feet.