Enough Solar Panels To Power The World

By another measure the unpopulated area of the sahara desert is over 9 million km which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power.

Enough solar panels to power the world.

A total of 51 42 billion solar panels would be needed to power the entire world on solar energy. It has been estimated that given current solar panel efficiency rates of about 20 it would take us covering a landmass area the size of spain with solar panels in order to power the world in. It would take 51 4 billion 350w solar panels to power the world. Put another way this is the equivalent of a solar power plant that covers 115 625 square miles.

Solar additions last year. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. Solar capture areas would have to be distributed over a wide area to avoid the problem of cloudy days or storms or other weather events that would obscure the sun pouring down onto your energy farm. Map courtesy of google maps.

How do we arrive at this number. 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. We receive a staggering 1 74 1017 watts of energy from it. The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w.

And europe solar installations have dropped 30 due to pandemic india and china are leading the world in solar power programs by 2024 china s deployment of solar panels will far. 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. 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.