How Many Solar Panels To Power The Usa

This is derived from the fact that every year the u.

How many solar panels to power the usa. To put this into context 1 petawatt equals about 1 billion million watts. Solar hydro geothermal and biofuels will also play roles with solar being at least equal to wind generation. 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. 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 yellow square is approximately 21 000 square miles. In this report nrel states that about 3 4 acres of solar panels are required to generate one gigawatt hour of electricity over the course of one year. How much are 21 250 square miles. I chose a 250 watt sharp nd 250qcs solar panel made in the usa 65 x39 each.

This means an astounding consumption of 12 000 kwh per year per capita. 767 762 000 000 watts 250 watts per panel 3 071 048 000 total panels. Requires about 4 petawatts of electricityover one year to run life as normal. It is also reported that total electricity consumption for the united states during 2012 was 3 694 650 million kwh million kilowatt hours.

Map courtesy of google maps. Consumes around 4000 billion kwh of electricity. American solar power offsets over 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year which is like planting almost 1 2 billion trees. 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.

About 7 86 billion solar panels would be needed to power the u s. 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. Just 11 200 000 acres to generate 4 000 000.