Solar Panel Calculator

About Solar Panel Calculator

A solar panel calculator estimates how many panels, and what system size, you need to cover a given daily energy use - a first, honest sizing before you talk to an installer. It works from your daily kilowatt-hours, the peak sun hours your location gets, and the wattage of the panels you are considering. Enter those three and the panel count and system size appear instantly, with a clear note that real output always falls short of the ideal. Sizing a solar array starts with a sum this simple, and it is worth doing before an installer's quote so you can judge whether their proposal is reasonable. The logic is: your daily energy use divided by the peak sun hours your location averages gives the system size, and dividing that by a panel's wattage gives the number of panels. The catch, which the tool states plainly, is that this is an ideal. Real arrays lose output to cloud, shading, dust, heat, panel angle and inverter inefficiency, easily twenty per cent or more, so the honest move is to size up from this figure rather than treat it as a target. Going off-grid adds batteries, sized separately for the days the sun does not cooperate.