Solar Panel Watts
How Many Watts Does A Solar Panel Produce ? – Don’t Miss This !
Author: Jason Gilford
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November 30, -0001
12:00 am #comment-1
First an electrical Watt is an instaneous unit and is Voltage times Amperage (P = E * I).
So your solar pane will produce 120 watts for any of the following conditions
12V * 10A = 120W
24V * 5A = 120W
48V * 2.5A = 120
Notice that all of the above voltage and current combinations equal 120 watts.
Lets assume that your panel produces 12Volts
If you do not connect anything to the panel you will have zero current flow, and as a result you will have zero watts.
12V * 0A = 0 Watts
Now you connect a device like a radio which draws a single amp when its turned on. The radio only takes the amount of current it needs to operate.
12V * 1 A= 12W THe radio only needs to draw twelve watts of electrical power. Even though its connected to a 120W panel you are only using 12W and you have 108W of un used generatingcapacity (120 -12) available to connect other things to like lights or other devices.
So in order to use the full wattage of the panel you have to draw enough current at a given voltage to equal the panel rating. This 120W rating for your panel is most likely for a bright sunny day. A couldy day it will produce less voltage and ove couse it won’t work at night
Now remember I said watts are an instaneous unit. You can measure the voltage and current with a meter at any given time, and compute the watts being consumed at the time you measured the voltage and current.
If you notice that your electric bill is using KW-Hrs (Kilowatt Hours). Kilo is a prefix that means 1000 so 1000W = 1KW.
Watt Hours or Kilowatt Hours are a cumulative reading. They provide a means to equate how much wattage has been used over a period of time. Watts times Hours = WattHours
100W used for 1 hour = 100 W-Hrs
50W used for 2 hours = 100 W-Hrs
200W used for 1/2 hour = 100 W-Hrs
Watt hours measure the average amount of energy used of a period of time. So if I turn on a 100 W light for 15minutes every hour for 4 hours I will use 100 W-hrs of energy
100W * four 15 minute intervals (15 min * 4 = 1 hr) so 100W * 1 Hr = 100 W-hrs. I used the same amount of power over a four hour period. I just used power in 15 minute intervals and used no power for periods of 45 minutes.
So to answer your question about how many watt it can produce in 1 hour the answer is 120 W-Hrs provided that you connect devices that will consume enough current at the generated voltage to equal 120Watts and that these devices consume that power for the entire hour.
November 30, -0001
12:00 am #comment-2
Yes. Solar panels are rated under standard test conditions (STC). If the sun is stronger than that rate, and/or the temperature is cooler than the standard, then the panel can put out more than it is rated.
November 30, -0001
12:00 am #comment-3
Question is, what voltage and power is the radio you wish to power? If it is AC and either 120v or 230v you will need an inverter to convert the 12v to AC supply.
The fact that the controller is 120 Watts will not matter that you have a 50 Watt panel. It should still work and charge the battery. You should be able to put an ammeter in series with the power from the controller to the battery and see that it is charging in sunlight.
November 30, -0001
12:00 am #comment-4
A 80 Watts solar panel, assuming 100% efficiency, can provide max 80 Watts. That’s good enough for one light bulb.
I am sure you need more power than that…
Total Power In = Total Power out + Losses
November 30, -0001
12:00 am #comment-5
Here is the math.
3W/ft * 64 ft = 192W
4hr * 192W = 768Whr < --- energy needed per day
768Whr / 12v = 64Ahr
64Ahr * 200%(d-rate) = 128Ahr <--- Your battery needs to be a minimum 128 Amp - Hour to opperate without damaging itself.
At Boise, Idaho — Latitude: 43.6 we get 5 sun hours per day average
If your latitude is less than that, your sun hours will likely be greater.
768Whr / 5hr = 153.6W ~ 160W panel required.
I highly recommend that you get a charge controller in addition to this panel, as it will protect your batteries and enable charging during low light conditions. Some even come with automatic light timers and or motion sensors:
http://www.aurorapower.net/products/list/1/categoryid/13/level/a.aspx
For more information on solar electric components and layout visit: http://www.aurorapower.net/alternative-energy/solar-electric.aspx
Hope that helps!
June 2, 2008
1:55 am #comment-6
5O watts solar panel with 100amp battery but the controller is not bringing out hight output its not powering?
powering the radios i want it to power. how do i step up the out put voltage. should i increase the wattage of the solar panell or use a step up transformer or change the controller because the solar panel is 5owatts and on the controller they wrote 120 watts. a friend told me it worked for him but its not working for me. what do i need to do
April 23, 2009
7:53 am #comment-7
If a 4 kilowatts inverter needs 80 watts of electericity to convert, can i use only an 80 watts solar panel ?
I’ve seen people installing bigger solar panels, than their inverter requires, why ?
August 28, 2009
4:06 pm #comment-8
How many watts does my solar panel need to be if I am running lights only at night?
I want to use 12vDc rope lighting that is 3 watts per foot and i am looking to use approx 64 ft of light. I am probably only going to have the lights on for 3-4 hours at night. I will be running the lights off a 12 volt car battery. What wattage will my solar panel need to be to recharge the battery during the day. I would appreciate any help, Thank You! I am also looking at led lighting that is only 0.8 watt per foot.
October 6, 2009
3:58 pm #comment-9
How many watts of electricity will a single 120 watt solar panel produce in 24 hours?
In other words, how long does it take a 120 watt panel to produce 120 watts of electricity?
Okay. In *one hour*, how many watts of electricity can this produce? Can someone answer this in a non-scientific fashion? I don’t need the math, I just need to know how many watts it can produce in one hour of direct sunlight.
June 14, 2010
1:38 pm #comment-10
if i bought a small solar panel 10 watts, and the sun light was very strong can it go to over 10 watts?
if the solar panel was designed for 10 watts, can it go above that if the light of the sun was really at it’s maximum ?
September 18, 2010
3:24 am #comment-11
Thanks for the thorough article. Reading all the comments was helpful as well. Solar watts is not as difficult as it appears at first.