How Many Solar Panels To Run The World

How do we arrive at this number.

How many solar panels to run the world. 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. 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. The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w. A better approach is to look at real world data captured from real world solar arrays and just extrapolate from there.

A 3kw solar system which consists of 12 panels can produce an average of 4 200 kwh per year. We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it. To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need. 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.

Just 11 200 000 acres to generate 4 000 000. Similarly the union territory of diu is fully run by solar power. You will need a roof space of about 340 sq ft for a 5kw system. This is roughly equal to the area of spain.

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. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. You will need a roof space of about 194 sq ft for a 3kw system. 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.

Assuming this power rating we would need to divide 2 75 tw by 350w which gives us the gigantic number of 7 85 billion 7 857 142 857 to be precise panels required. A total of 51 42 billion solar panels would be needed to power the entire world on solar energy.