How Many Solar Panels Do I Need in UAE
If you are planning to install solar panels on your roof to reduce your electricity bill and want to know how many solar panels are needed to power your house in UAE, then you have to right place.
Solar panels can save you money, cut your carbon footprint, and protect you from energy bill hikes. But you don’t want to make a mistake and get the wrong number of solar panels installed. Getting too many is an unnecessary expense, and few could make your purchase unprofitable – or lead you to pay your installer to put up more panels another time. This guide will help you work out how many solar panels your home in UAE needs – though getting it exactly right will still require the help of an expert.
When determining how many solar panels are needed to power your house in UAE, there are three key factors to consider to get the most benefits of solar energy:
- Average daily energy usage
- Sun hours
- Roof size
Average daily energy consumption
The best way to discover your current energy usage is by reviewing your electricity bills. Collect your past year’s worth of electricity bills and look for your “average daily energy use” figure on each of them – it will typically be in kilowatt-hours or “kWh”. Note this number down for each bill you have, and then take an average of all of those numbers. The final number you arrive at will be your typical energy use over 24 hours, including both day and nighttime hours.
Once you have this figure, load it into our simple solar calculator along with a little more information about you and your goals, and in seconds you’ll be able to see how many solar panels you might need.
Sun hours
Solar panels need sunlight to function – it’s an obvious rule. But what buyers often don’t realize is that their home’s exposure to sunlight, or how many sun hours they get, can have a direct impact on the number of solar panels they will need. And therefore it’s affected by your location. There are varying amounts of sun hours in the UAE, which will affect the number of solar panels you will need.
Different regions enjoy wildly different amounts of sunshine, UAE has 1,900 hours of sunlight in a year while a place like Germany could have, depending upon which way you look at it, between 1,100 to 1,250 hours in a year.
You can find out how much the sun hours on your house by checking data provided by the Global Solar Atlas.
The other thing to consider is how many of those sunlight hours can reach your solar panels and the time of day that they will be exposed to sunlight. For example, a house with some shading on the roof might need more solar panels than a house with no shading, to make up for the panels receiving less sunlight. Or for a house that uses most of its energy during the morning, it might make more sense to put the solar panels on an east-facing roof space to capture the morning sun and generate free electricity when you need it most.
Roof size
Roof size is a key factor because it determines the number of panels that can fit on your roof, how much energy will be generated, and the cost. If you have a small roof, solar panel size and numbers are important considerations. With a large usable roof area, perhaps you can sacrifice some efficiency and buy larger panels (at a lower cost per panel) to get to your target energy output. But if your usable roof area is limited, or if it’s partially shaded, being able to use fewer smaller high efficiency panels may be the best way to make the most possible power over the long term, ultimately saving you more money. The average panel is two square meters.
It is also important to consider your roof suitability: whether it can support the weight of the solar panels and how the panels will be angled.
Check your building plans or hire a professional to measure your roof, to see if you can fit the panels you need up there.
How many solar panels are needed to power a house in UAE?
The average one-bedroom house needs five solar panels, a typical three-bedroom house requires 7 panels, and a five-bedroom house will usually need 11 panels of 545-watt solar panels.
| Household Size | Monthly Electricity Usage | Number of Solar Panels | Size of Solar Panel System |
| 3 bedroom | 3,800 kWh | 7 | 205 – 270 sq.ft |
| 5 bedrooms | 5,700 kWh | 11 | 285 – 450 sq.ft |
| 7 bedrooms | 6,800 kWh | 13 | 320 – 570 sq.ft |
Conclusion
To calculate the number of solar panels needed for a home you need to first find out the average monthly usage (kWh) of your house, then divide this by the average monthly solar power generation in your area. This should give you the kilowatt of solar panels needed to power your house, then just divide that by the wattage of individual solar panels to get the total number of solar panels needed for your home.
In UAE, the monthly power usage of an average household is 380 kWh. Therefore an average UAE house needs approximately 3.6 kW of a solar system which is 7 solar panels each of 545 watts.
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