One of the first questions homeowners ask when going solar is “How many solar panels do I need to power my home?” Contact online >>
One of the first questions homeowners ask when going solar is “How many solar panels do I need to power my home?”
The goal for any solar project should be 100% electricity offset and maximum savings — not necessarily to cram as many panels on a roof as possible. So, the number of panels you need to power a house varies based on three main factors:
In this article, we’ll show you how to manually calculate how many panels you’ll need to power your home. Once you have an estimate for the number of panels, you’re one step close to figuring out how much solar costs for your home, and how much you can save on electricity bills
If you’d rather skip the math, connect with an Energy Advisor to design a custom solar system.
While it varies from home to home, the US households typically need between 10 and 20 solar panels to entirely offset their average annual electricity consumption.
The goal of most solar projects is to offset your electric bill 100%, so your solar system is sized to fit your average electricity use. Here''s a basic equation you can use to get an estimate of how many solar panels you need to power your home:
Obviously, electricity use, peak sun hours, and panel wattage will be different for everyone. And since you didn''t come here to do algebra, we''ll go through how to figure out each variable and run through an example scenario based on national averages.
Related reading: How Do You Calculate The Number of Panels on a 16 kW Solar System?
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average US household in 2021 used 10,632 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year. That’s equal to:
It’s important to note that this usage varies quite a bit from state to state. For example, the average daily usage was ~18 kWh in Hawaii and 40 kWh in Louisiana, which is quite a spread. But we''ll use the national average 30 kWh per day as the figure for our example.
The easiest way to find your daily electricity usage is to dig up some recent utility bills. Your bill should show your usage for 30 days (or whatever your payment period is) and you can use this to get a sense of your daily electricity consumption. Just take the total usage during the period, and divide it by the number of days.
Electricity usage varies from month to month, so the more bills you can average together, the more accurate your calculation will be.
Once you have your daily electricity usage, the next step is to figure out how many peak sun hours your system will get per day!
A big factor in determining how many solar panels you need to power your home is the amount of sunlight you get, known as peak sun hours.
A peak sun hour is when the intensity of sunlight (known as solar irradiance) averages 1,000 watts per square meter or 1 kW/m2.
In the US, the average peak sun hours range from over 5.75 hours per day in the Southwest to less than 4 hours per day in the northernmost parts of the country.
Use the map above to estimate the average peak sun hours for your area, or use this peak sun hours calculator to get a precise figure for your location.
Here are some tips for using the peak sun hours calculator:
Based on the map, about half the US gets less than 4.5 peak sun hours and half gets more, so we''ll use 4.5 peak sun hours as the figure for our example.
The final variable is how much electricity each solar panel can produce per peak sun hour. This is called power rating and it''s measured in Watts.
For the purposes of our example scenario, we''ll use 400W panels.
Now let''s plug in our example figures:
If we round up, it takes 17 solar panels to power the average American household and meet the goal of 100% electricity offset.
Now since we''re talking national averages, the national average electricity price in the US was 16.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in May 2023. Meanwhile, the average price of electricity from solar systems purchased on solar is between 6 and 8 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Now that we''ve gone through the manual calculations of finding out how many solar panels you need to power a house, we''ll show you the easy way. (I know, it’s middle school math class all over again).
Modern home solar projects are planned using satellite technology, and you can start planning your own project using our solar calculator. Simply punch in your address and set your average energy bill to calculate how big your solar system needs to be and how much you can save by switching to solar.
First, convert kW into Watts by multiplying by 1,000. So 5.2 kW would be 5,200 W.
Next divide the total system size in Watts by the power rating of the panels you''d prefer. If we use 400W, that would mean you need 13 solar panels.
Of course, the easiest way to know how many solar panels you need is to team up with an Energy Advisor to design a custom system.
Based on average electricity consumption and peak sun hours, it takes around 17 400-Watt solar panels to power a home. However, this number will vary between 13-19 based on how much sun the panels get and how much electricity the home uses.
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