Enough Solar Panels To Power The World

The current standard size of panels used in a large sized solar plant is easily over 350w.

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. For the first time ever solar and wind made up the majority of the world s new power generation marking a seismic shift in how nations get their electricity. Put another way this is the equivalent of a solar power plant that covers 115 625 square miles. The earth s current energy consumption rate is around 13 5 tw at any given moment including oil gas coal nuclear and hydroelectric.

How do we arrive at this number. 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. Here we are supposing a panel size of 350w for the calculated size of 18tw of solar plants. The yellow square is approximately 21 000 square miles.

Map courtesy of google maps. 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. 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.

Solar additions last year. 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. It would take 51 4 billion 350w solar panels to power the world.