Solar panels have become a popular renewable energy source, offering a way to harness the sun's power to generate electricity. But how much electricity do solar panels actually produce?
Whether they'll generate enough electricity for your home year-round will depend on: if your solar panel system works in a power cut. It may be more realistic to think about whether you can be self-sufficient for the brighter parts of the year, and then top up your energy use from the grid at other times.
This is calculated by multiplying the number of panels by the average output per panel: 12 x 265W = 3,180kWh. A solar panel with a power rating of 350W can produce about 0.72kWh of electricity in a day. But you need more than one panel to power your home.
The system generates almost 25kWh of electricity each day in May and July, but produces just 4.9kWh per day in December. Broadly speaking, a solar panel system in the UK will produce about 70% of its total output in spring and summer (March to August), with the remaining 30% coming in autumn and winter (September to February).
According to Solar Energy UK, solar panel performance falls by 0.34 percentage points for every degree that the temperature rises above 25°C. Plus, the longer days and clearer skies mean solar power generates much more electricity during the summer, even if their efficiency falls slightly. Is solar energy expensive to produce?
Solar panels have a major limitation: they can only provide electricity when the sun is shining. This means that solar panels cannot generate any power at night, when there is no sunlight to capture. Moreover, most people are not at home during the day to use the electricity that solar panels produce.