How Much Space Does One Solar Panel Take Up

The average residential solar installation in the us is about 20 solar panels which at 15 square feet each adds up to 300 square feet for the entire solar array a fancy word for the group of solar panels.

How much space does one solar panel take up.

A simple rule of thumb is to take 100 sqft for every 1kw of solar panels. Generally the setback will take up 25 percent of the usable space on the roof. Extrapolating this a 1 mw solar pv power plant should require about 100000 sqft about 2 5 acres or 1 hectare. Yes windmills take up to much land.

So if you want to get a sense of how many panels a roof can support multiply the square footage of the roof by 75. 24 long depending on how they are oriented. How much space your solar panels take up on your roof depends on the size of your system. However owing to the fact that large ground mounted solar pv farms require space for other accessories the total land required for a 1 mw of solar pv power plant will be about 4 acres.

As shown in the diagram below a conventional 4 kw system left can end up covering a large portion of the roof. Take that number and divide it by 17 5 which is the average square footage of one solar panel. Because sunpower panels produce more power per square foot you ll get more power density in a smaller area. This setback varies from state to state.

However a 4kw sunpower system right takes up much less space delivering the same amount of clean electricity.