Question

Consider a household that uses 22.0 kW-hour of electricity per day on average. Most of that electricity is supplied by fossil fuels. To reduce their carbon footprint, the household wants to install solar panels, which receive on average 376 W/m^2 from the Sun each day.
A) If the solar panels are 18.1% efficient (fraction of solar energy converted into useable electrical energy), what area of solar panels is needed to power the household?

Answer 1

Answer:

$A_{net} = 13.469\,m^{2}$

Explanation:

The daily energy consumption of the household is:

$\Delta E_{day} = (22\,kWh)\cdot (\frac{3600000\,J}{1\,kWh} )$

$\Delta E_{day} = 79200000\,J$

The needed area of solar panel to power the household is:

$\Delta E_{day} = \eta\cdot G\cdot A_{net}\cdot \Delta t$

$A_{net} = \frac{\Delta E_{day}}{\eta\cdot G\cdot \Delta t}$

$A_{net} = \frac{79200000\,J}{(0.181)\cdot (376\,\frac{W}{m^{2}} )\cdot (86400\,s)}$

$A_{net} = 13.469\,m^{2}$