Solar Panel Calculator: How Many Do You Need?

With the cost of living higher than ever before, more and more homeowners are investing in solar panels. A solar panel installation can help you to create a sustainable energy source and cut the cost of your energy bills. Jewel Renewables solar panels use state of the art technology to ensure the best energy performance and yield - but how many do you need? If you want to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, keep reading to learn how to calculate the right amount of solar panels needed to create a reliable source of energy for your home.

What Are Solar Panels?

Before we delve into how many solar panels are needed to provide energy for your home, it is important first to understand what solar panels are and how they work.

The sun is an endless source of sustainable energy, and with solar panels in place, the sun’s power can be used to run your home. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels do not emit any carbon when creating electricity and are an environmentally friendly way to produce energy. Homes of all sizes can benefit from solar panels.

They are mounted to the roof of a property and effectively convert the sun’s energy into electricity. At Jewel, our solar panels are designed to produce energy in all weather conditions, and the PV cells of our panels deliver a high yield per surface area.

How Do Solar Panels Work?

Jewel solar panels are made up of photovoltaic (PV) cells and a layer of semi conductant. This essential layer reacts to sunlight and creates an electrical field. When the electrical field is created, a current of energy is generated. The solar cells in the panels direct the electrical current through an inverter device, which converts it into an alternating current.

Most modern domestic homes use alternating currents, and the energy solar panels create can either be funnelled into your home or sold to the National Grid. If you have a storage system in place, you can choose to have your energy directed there as well.

You may think you need to live in a beautiful sunny country to reap the rewards of solar panels, but this isn’t the case. At Jewel, we have developed a weatherproof design that makes it possible for energy to be produced in low light conditions. Don’t let the bad British weather sway your decision, as our solar panels can create energy even on days when the sky is full of clouds.

Thanks to their hard wearing aluminium and stainless steel mounting system, our solar panels will stay safe on your roof and successfully produce a sustainable energy source for your property. Now you know what solar panels are and how they work, it's time to calculate how many you are going to need.

How Do I Calculate How Many Solar Panels I Need?

To effectively power your home with solar energy, it is important that you have enough panels installed. To work out how many solar panels you will need, you first need to consider the following:

• The hours of daily sunlight in your area
• The size of your roof
• The average daily energy consumption of your home

To ensure you install the right amount of panels, you need to calculate the average total Kilowatt hours (kWh) you use per day. For example, a 3 bedroom house will need approximately a 5kW solar array. This collection of solar panels can generate 20kWh on a sunny day. 20kWh is enough to heat a home of this size and provide power to other electrical appliances.

You don’t want to invest in solar panels only to discover that their size is not compatible with your roof. When you contact Jewel Renewables, we can help you determine the best solar panels for the size of your property. A great feature of our cutting edge solar panels is that they can achieve approximately 97% efficiency, meaning your home can benefit from almost all of the electricity they produce.

While our weatherproof panels can generate energy in low light conditions, more panels may be needed if you live in a consistently cloudy area. With anti-LID and anti-PID technology, our solar panels offer enduring performance, even on days when the sun is struggling to shine. If you live somewhere that sees more cloud coverage than blue skies, you may need to invest in additional panels to successfully generate enough energy to run your home all year round.

The expert team at Jewel Renewables will be able to provide you with an accurate answer to the question - how many solar panels do I need? We offer a variety of different power outputs in our panels, but the following information provides an approximate answer for different solar panel sizes and surfaces areas:

3kW (solar panel size) 12 (number of 250w panels) 19.2 m² (estimated surface area)
4kW (solar panels size) 16 (number of 250w panels) 25.6 m² (estimated surface area)
5kW (solar panels size) 20 (number of 250w panels) 32.0 m² (estimated surface area)
6kW (solar panels size) 24 (number of 250w panels) 38.4 m² (estimated surface area)

Start Saving Money Today!

By using solar panels, you can minimise your dependence on conventional energy sources and stop incurring a steep rise in heating bills. The cost of living crisis is causing energy bills to soar, but with our solar panels, you can create a sustainable energy source to power your home.

To learn more about the benefits of our solar panels and how many will be needed to heat your home, please get in touch with us today. Use our online quoting engine to get a bespoke price for your new solar panels and begin your journey to a more environmentally friendly home today.