How Many Solar Panels Do I Need For A Total Home Solar System?

How Many Panels?

I’m often asked how many solar panels are needed to completely power a home using solar power. Well, that’s not always an easy question to answer - there are several factors to consider when determining how many solar panels are needed. Fortunately, there is a basic formula that we use and for this month’s blog, I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to provide you with a few things to consider if you’re thinking about using solar power to power your whole home.

Let’s consider that the typical home is 1500 square feet, with (optimistic) electrical costs of about $100 per month. In helping you to decide, we:

• look at the exact number of KiloWatt-Hours (kWh) used per month
• factor in the percentage of power that you want to offset with solar
• consider the amount of dedicated sunlight hours you receive

Armed with those facts, we could safely assume that a house of this size would generally need about 16 panels to completely cover electrical power needs.

What About Payback Time?

The number of panels used on your home will also have a direct impact on the “payback” schedule. In general, using the typical home example of 16 panels, it will take an average of 8 – 12 years to payback the cost of installation. And in some cases, NS Power will allow you to sell excess power to be fed back into the general grid, giving you the opportunity to save more money over time. Best to check with us on that one though as NS Power has very strict rules on the amount of excess power it will purchase, determined largely by the size and capacity of renewable energy systems.

Implementing a total home solar energy system can provide benefits for years to come, and we respect that it’s a huge decision on the part of the homeowner. We suggest you check out last month’s blog, where we ask homeowners to self-answer a few basic questions like:

• Do you have a roof (angle) that can support solar panels?
• How much shade falls on the roof?
• If your roof structurally sound?

So, to answer the very common question about how many panels are needed to totally power a home with solar energy, keep in mind that the number of panels needed will depend largely on your roof and energy-saving requirements. When making a serious decision, it’s always best to call a professional! The team at Aztek Solar would be pleased to meet with you to conduct an on-site assessment to let you know exactly how many panels would be required to help you reach your goal. We look forward to hearing from you: azteksolar.net/contact-us

Thanks for Reading!

Brian McKay
(aka The Solar Guy)