Solar Power Calculator: What Size of Solar System Do You Need to Power Your Home?

Now, when you need a solar panel for your property, you need to choose the solar system. When you know this, you can make an informed decision and ensure you are getting all the benefits you think of with solar. It is a great way to cut costs on energy bills for your property’s power consumption needs.

Solar System & Energy Production

Before you choose commercial or residential solar installation for your property, you need to check how much electricity you actually need. With a clear picture of energy consumption, you can make the best choice of getting the most suitable solar panel. Here is a table to help you understand how much energy you can create with a solar system:

This table can help you get an idea about the energy generation but solar production depends on many factors like location and exposure to sunlight.

Factors Affecting Solar System Size

There are several factors that can affect the required size of the solar system. Here are some of the top factors so you can make a choice with precision:

• Energy Consumption: The amount of electricity your household or your property consumes plays a vital role in determining the size of the solar system you need. A household with higher energy demands will require a larger solar panel.
• Location: The amount of sunlight your location receives affects the efficiency of solar panels. Areas with more sunlight can generate more electricity from solar panels, requiring a smaller system size compared to areas with less sunlight.
• Roof Size and Orientation: The available roof space is important. With this, the orientation of the panel relative to the sun impacts the number of solar panels you can install and their efficiency.
• Shading: Shading from trees, buildings, or other obstructions can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching your solar panels. It can affect the performance of solar panels by a huge margin.
• Quality of System: You should always choose systems that are efficient. The efficiency of solar panels and other system components also influences the size of the solar system needed.

Step-by-Step Guide to Solar System Size Estimation

If you want to calculate how much energy you need for your solar needs, you can choose online calculators. You need to enter your basic details about the energy needs, contact details, and address to get the estimate.

If you want to try your hands to get a more accurate estimate with real-time calculations, you should try the manual approach. Here is what you need to do for that:

Gather Information

You need to find your monthly and annual energy consumption. You can get it by checking your old electricity bills. Once you have the units you consumed ready, you need to check the direct sunlight (in hours) in your locality, more specifically, on your property. For this, you can take help from a solar radiation map and check peak sunlight hours.

Calculate Daily Energy Needs

You need to extract the information from the electricity bills. Divide your monthly kWh usage by the number of days in the month. It will help you in getting your average kWh consumption. This process gives you a clear understanding of your needs with residential or commercial solar installation for your property.

Factor in Sunlight Hours

After you have an average of your daily consumption, you need to multiply your daily kWh consumption by your area’s average daily peak sunlight hours. With this process, you can get daily kWh production required from your solar system. It is the only way to determine what capacity of solar panel you need.

Calculate System Inefficiencies

There can be issues with generated energy in your home. There are many possible issues that can affect this and some of them are inverter conversion, wiring resistance, and shading. You need to have a strategy for this as well. To compensate for this, multiply the theoretical daily average kWh production by a derating factor. You can adjust it by multiplying it by 1.1 or 1.25.

Determine Required System Capacity

Once you get the exact energy number, you need to divide the adjusted daily kWh production by the average daily output per watt of your chosen solar panel model. The model of solar can be found in the specifications of the panel that you are aiming to get for your business. This gives you the required system capacity in kilowatts (kW).

Consider Future Needs

Most importantly, you should also consider if you are planning to increase your demands in the near future. As a norm, energy consumption can increase over time so it is better to keep it in consideration. You can try hot water pools in Australia so it is best to keep a small number of them in mind. It gives you a clear picture and you can sell the excess back to the grid to earn money.

Roof Space Availability

Once you have the estimated system size in kW, check your roof’s usable area. You can not use every corner and there is a particular area with maximum sunlight exposure. In this regard, solar installation experts in Perth can help. They can help you determine if your roof can accommodate the required number of panels.

Choose the Best Solar Panel Installation Team

Whether you choose an online solar panel installation cost calculator or use the manual way to determine the size, you need an expert team for installation. With this, you can get the best outcomes and generate the maximum possible energy with the panels. As an expert team has years of experience in the industry, it is evident that they have worked on projects that are similar to yours.