Amount Of Solar Panels Needed To Power The World

At first that sounds like a lot and it is.

Amount of solar panels needed to power the world.

Map courtesy of google maps. 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. After all we don t have dual suns that permit us to soak up solar energy 24 hours a day and there will be inevitable interruptions in power relay due to maintenance or any number of incidents. 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.

To put this into perspective this is about 10 000 times more than what humans need. A total of 51 42 billion solar panels would be needed to power the entire world on solar energy. 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. 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.

It can be turned into reality. By the end of 2019 a cumulative amount of 629 gw of solar power was installed throughout the world. And as the report points out if this. Consumes about 4 petawatt hours of electricity per year we d need about 13 600 000 acres or 21 250 square miles of solar panels to meet the total electricity requirements of the united states for a year.

This is roughly equal to the area of spain. An average homeowner needs 28 to 34 solar panels to fully offset their electricity bill with solar. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. As of 2020 there are at least 37 countries around the world with a cumulative pv capacity of more than one gigawatt.

The yellow square is approximately 21 000 square miles. We receive a staggering 1 74 10 17 watts of energy from it. The number of panels you need for your house depends on factors like location and panel performance. According to the analysis we would need around 1 1 million square kilometers of solar panels to power the whole earth or an area the size of south africa.