This article may contain some affiliate links and if you make a purchase after clicking on any of teh links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
For the home solar design process, the production of energy you use is much more essential than the house size of your home. This variation is primarily due to the wide range of power people use. But how many solar panels do I need for a 2000 square ft home?
The most precise and reliable way to find out is to have an expert solar installer analyze your residence. But on average, a 2,000 square ft home will use a solar array of around 4,000 watts. Depending on the type of panel you will be using, a system of this size should be between 12 to 18 solar panels.
Although it only takes a few minutes, people sometimes want to know the sufficient electrical utilization for a 2,000-square-foot apartment and how many solar cells would be required to generate electricity.
How to Calculate Number of Solar Panels Needed in a 2000 Sq. ft House
The average property of 2,000 to 2,499 square feet uses 11,606 kWh per year or 967 kWh every month.
If the residence has a south-facing ceiling with no covering throughout the day, it would require 16 to 25 top-quality solar cells to produce electrical energy.
In this case, the term “premium” means the solar panels with an expected output of around 400 watts, which are currently the most efficient panels on the market. SunPower A-Series and LG NeON 2 Series are two examples.
Budget solar panels can lead to significant savings, but they produce less power per panel. The least-performance panels on the market have a wattage rating of around 250 watts.
How Many Solar Panels Do I Need For a 2000 Square Ft Home?
To meet all of the electricity requirements of a 2,000 sq. ft residence that uses 967 kWh per month, 24 to 38 budget solar cells would be required.
The amount of solar panels required varies significantly between the budget and premium instances. Why is this the case?
The chief factor for this is that the amount of power produced by solar panels is heavily directly proportional to the amount of sunlight available in your city. Being further south is advantageous, but the local climate is equally essential. Many dry climates receive more radiation from the sun than calmer cities a little farther south.
The ranges we provide – somewhere around 16 and 25 premium solar cells to yield sufficient energy for a typical 2,000 square foot house – were determined using houses in the foggy Northwest and the very bright southwest.
When it comes to incident solar radiation, evaluated as Direct Normal Irradiance, these two cities are on different ends of the spectrum.
Most cities fall somewhere in the middle and receive an ordinary amount of daylight, making them suitable for home solar.
What is the Most Energy-Intensive Appliance in Your Home?
But if you do not have a swimming pool, most of your energy demand is likely to be for heating, cooling, or both. Since this is climate-dependent, average residential electricity usage varies greatly depending on where you live.
The use of electricity for air conditioning
Many parts of the world, such as the Southeast, where it seems to get hot and warm summers, consider air conditioning nearly essential. Just a handful of homes in the NorthwestNorthwest have air conditioners, and those that do may only have a window unit or two for the few weeks when it’s unbearably hot.
An air conditioning system consumes a lot of energy, looking to draw a few thousand watts while running.
Home heating requires the use of electricity
In some regions, you may only require home heating for a few weeks out of the year. Resistive heating is more commonly used in these scenarios than in areas with several days or weeks of heating days.
Like that found in a toaster or hairdryer, resistive heating uses electricity to power a coil. Powered baseboard heaters or small area heaters are likely familiar to you. Resistive heating is wasteful, but it is helpful in areas with low heating needs because it is inexpensive to implement and does not necessitate ductwork.
Natural gas is the most famous heating fuel in cold regions with numerous thermal months. While a gas furnace does use electricity to run the fan, it is only a fraction of the power required by a fully electric heater.
It is essential to distinguish powered resistive heating from extremely effective electric heat compressors, which use electric currents compressors to pull heated air from the atmosphere or the ground, similar to how a fridge or air-conditioning system works.
Heat pumps have become increasingly popular, even in freezing climates. Many utility companies and local government agencies provide rebates for air and ground source heating systems.
What size is the Solar Array Recommended if You Use 2,500 kWh of Electricity Per Month?
Does that depend on your goal; complete independence? Net commercial profit? Some respite from utility bills? Maximum return on investment?
2,500 kWh per month equates to an average of 3.4 kW. That’s almost double what a 2000 sq ft. house uses, but you’ve got a lot of stuff.
If you live near an excellent, sunny location and want complete independence, you’d need about 15 kW of panels and perhaps 100 kWh of battery – plus some urgent fallback. No strategy makes economic sense for anyone with utility power, but if you are an end-of-days prepper or have a deep dislike of utilities… Then this is for you.
What are some of the perfect but least expensive solar panels for a house that uses 4,000 kWh of energy per 30 days?
If you are genuinely committed to sustainability, you should begin by reducing your energy consumption. 4000 kWh per month is far too much for a single-family home.
Negawatts (energy savings) are far less expensive than megawatts until you’ve reduced usage by a significant proportion of what’s plausible.
Conclusion
There are, of course, some exemptions. If you’ve only been in your household for a few months or would like to put solar panels on a new home, most electricity companies will let us evaluate usage centered on the square footage of your home.
Another particular case can sometimes be created for people who anticipate increasing their power usage. We can approximate the extra usage and factor it into the solar array configuration and expense if you intend to buy an EV (electric vehicle) or replace central air. But the utilities are picky! They will require us to offer proof of ownership and the solar system application.
Related Posts: