How much electricity does a solar panel generate?
For home energy, it’s generally better to use the method above: Start with your monthly needs for electricity, then calculate how big a system you need. But if for whatever reason you want to know how much energy you can get from a solar panel, here’s how to calculate it. First start with the number of hours of “peak sun” you get per day. That’s easy: In our map above, it’s 4 hours for green, 5 hours for yellow, and 6 hours for orange. Then multiply that by the peak output of your panel, then by the number of days per month. For example, for a panel rated at 150 watts in New York, we’d have: 4 hours peak sun x 150 watts panel x 30.5 days per month รท 1000 kWh/watt-hour = 18.3 kWh/mo. Solar panels do NOT take more energy to make than they generate Somehow the myth got started that it takes more energy to make a solar panel than you can get out of that panel. That’s just absolutely not true. The energy payback time on a panel is 1.5 to 3.5 years, but most panel will produce useful electri
