How Much Electric Do Solar Panels Create?

The answer to that depends on 2 things: How much sun the panels are getting; and how 'big' the solar panel system is.

Let's take my family's solar panels as an example.

We have 12 panels (covering a roof area of about 20 sq. metres), each with a capacity of 245 watts. This gives a total capacity of 2.94 kilowatts (kW). In other words, in good, sunny conditions, it will generate 2.94 kW per hour.

However, as you know, it is not always sunny, the length of daylight hours (outside the tropics) changes throughout the year, and so does the height of the sun above the horizon. All of these factors, plus others effect the amount of electric you get.

We had our system installed the day before the shortest day in the year. So even though the shortest day was wall to wall sunshine, we only got 5 kW. That's still a third of our daily Winter usage but we can expect a lot more from a similar day in Summer.

In the 3 weeks we've had the panels, the daily amount generated has varied from 0.4 to 6.7 kW with an average of 2.3 kW. Our electric meter regularly 'stands still', even in the depths of a British Winter and, on the best days, it's managed to do this with a TV, PC, numerous gadgets on stand-by, and the tumble dryer all on at the same time!

We're definately looking forward to the Summer.....

More about our system here.