How Many Solar Panels To Run The World

A 5kw solar system which consists of 20 panels can produce an average of 7 000 kwh per year.

How many solar panels to run the world. How do we arrive at this number. Solar power features prominently in modi government s us 2 5 billion saubhagya scheme launched in july 2015 to electrify. You will need a roof space of about 340 sq ft for a 5kw system. A better approach is to look at real world data captured from real world solar arrays and just extrapolate from there.

The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w. A total of 51 42 billion solar panels would be needed to power the entire world on solar energy. Cochin international airport seventh busiest in india is the first one in the world to run entirely on solar power handling more than 1 000 flights a week. Dividing the global yearly demand by 400 kw h per square meter 198 721 800 000 000 400 and we arrive at 496 804 500 000 square meters or 496 805 square kilometers 191 817 square miles as the area required to power the world with solar panels.

You will need a roof space of about 194 sq ft for a 3kw system. We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it. 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. Starting with some conservative assumptions from a 2013 national renewable energy labs nrel report we know that it takes on average 3 4 acres of solar panels to generate a gigawatt hour of electricity over a year.

Now if we cover an area of the earth 335 kilometers by 335 kilometers with solar panels even with moderate efficiencies achievable easily today it will provide more than 17 4 tw power. To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. Similarly the union territory of diu is fully run by solar power.

A 3kw solar system which consists of 12 panels can produce an average of 4 200 kwh per year. According to a graduate thesis by technical university of braunschweig student nadine may the number of solar panels needed to supply the entire world s energy needs would fill just 25 000 square.