Solar Panel Acres Per Mw

The first solar farm boom area was in the south west with devon cornwall being a haven for the solar investor and this soon spread right along the south coast.

Solar panel acres per mw.

Redefining its calculations nrel determines that a large fixed tilt solar pv plant requires 2 8 acres per gwh year of generation. A general rule of thumb. A solar farm requires 4 7 acres of land per megawatt mw of capacity. One mw is equal to one million watts.

Thus a 1 mw solar power plant with crystalline panels about 18 efficiency will require about 4 acres while the same plant with thin film technology 12 efficiency will require about 6 acres. If you divide this one million watts by 200 watts per panel we are left with needing 5 000 solar panels to produce one mw of power. For direct land use requirements the capacity weighted average is 7 3 acre mwac with 40 of power plants within 6 and 8 acres mwac. When it comes to solar energy per acre a photovoltaic solar plant which on average produces 1 gwh per year will require around 2 8 acres of land.

The simple thumb rule is high efficiency solar panels will require less area for the same mw capacity than lower efficiency panels. Approximately 25 acres of land is required for every 5 megawatts mw of installation enough to power 1 515 homes1. On average 1 acre solar farm cost about 500 per month to lease in the united states. For example the solar farm land requirements for a 1 megawatt solar plant is around 5 acres.

If you were to use panels that were a higher wattage such as 320 watts you would need significantly less panels to achieve the same one mw of power. 8 9 acres mwac with 22 of power plants within 8 and 10 acres mwac. Put another way a pv plant spanning 32 acres could power 1 000 households. Other published estimates of solar direct land use generally fall within these ranges.

But there are exceptions. The cost of land for 1 mw plant will therefore translate to 2 500 per month on average. Small single axis photovoltaic systems require an average 2 9 acres per 1 000 megawatt hours or 3 8 acres when considering all unused area that falls inside the project boundary.