Solar Panel Power Output Per Square Foot
In terms of power output it is best to separate solar panels into two categories.
Solar panel power output per square foot. So how many square feet of your roof will your pv solar system cover. Thus the output for each solar panel in your array would. Because of the variables pinning down exact numbers is tough. 5 hours x 290 watts an example wattage of a premium solar panel 1 450 watts hours or roughly 1 5 kilowatt hours kwh.
Number of solar panels per square foot of roof space. How much energy does a solar panel produce. 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. The average sized solar panel takes up an area of 17 6 square feet and produces 265 watts under direct sunlight.
How many solar panels are needed to power an average house. 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. 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. That translates to just over 15 watts per square foot.
In a 6 kilowatt solar installation made up of 20 solar panels the panels alone will weigh approximately 800 pounds 20 panels x 40 lbs. 60 cell solar panels are typically 5 4 feet tall by about 3 25 feet wide and have a power output in standard test conditions of between 270 watts to 300 watts depending on the exact efficiency of the cells in them. Based on our calculation above we know that this same system measures at 352 square feet which works out to a weight of 2 3 pounds per square foot 800 pounds 352 sq ft. 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.