Getting the Right Amount of Solar Panels for Your System

You are ready to purchase some solar panels for your home or business, but you aren’t really sure how many panels you’ll actually need. You’re going to need to figure out how much electricity you use, look over your electricity bill, and use all this information to figure out your panel needs. Keep reading to learn exactly how to do all of that so you’ll be ready to install your solar panels right away!

First, you’ll need to figure out how much solar energy you need.

The primary piece of this is to calculate out how many Watts of solar you require. This will depend on how much power you want to create. If you are shopping for a grid-tied system, you will get the answer in your electric bills. Every month, the electric company has recorded exactly how much power (kiloWatt hours or kWh) you used so they could charge you for it.

The purpose of that kWh figure and kW is generally confusing. The kWh is simply kW over time. For instance: if 10 kW is consumed for 2 hours, that is 20 kWh. A parallel is kW is like a speedometer, registering how much power is being used at one point in time. And kWh is like an odometer, registering how much energy has been used over time.

Calculate your energy needs using your electricity bill.

All you need to do is study at the history of kWh usage on your documented electric bills or your online account with the power corporation. We suggest reviewing at least 12 months of electric history. You will discern a difference in usage from winter to summer and base your requirements on just one month’s bill can be a big error.

The subsequent arrangement is how much of the electric bill do you need to offset. You could reduce it completely, cut in in half or arrange something in between. You do need to be careful not to put in a system that will produce more than you use. In most cases, you do not get a payback on the excess energy produced. When uncertain, aim for just under your usage to avoid over-paying for your solar panel system. For instance, if you combined all your usage for a year and it was 12,000 kWh and you determined you wanted a system to produce 95% of that do 12,000 x .95 = 11,400 kWh so that is your target product.

This all applies to a grid-tied system where there will be electric bills for evidence. If you are sizing an off-grid system, there is no more math required. You will want to list everything you require to power, and the quantity of Watts it handles and how many hours per day it will be running. For each thing, multiply the Watts by the hours to get Watt-hours. Add up the Watt-hours of your total items on the list. Divide this by 1,000 and you will produce the kWh that you require.

Last step: figure out exactly how many watts you need to figure out how many panels you’ll need.

Now that you have arrived at what you need to produce, the next move is to calculate out how many Watts of solar will do that. Many factors affect solar output including where you live, the direction of the solar panels, and shading of your property.

Check out our pricing tool here at HahaSmart, as it will also ask for a system size in kiloWatts (kW). A good opening point is to know that kWh number you want to reach and divide it by 1,500. In our instance, above where you were required to generate 11,400 kWh it would be 11,400/1,500 = 7.6 kW. Once you observe the output on that system size, you can modify the size up or down to get to the target.

Want to learn more tips about bringing solar into your lifestyle? Check out the HahaSmart blog!

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