An acre of land can fit between 1,500 and 2,000 solar panels depending on set-up and design. The size of a standard solar panel is 78 by 39 inches. The maximum solar panels per acre will vary, with a completely flat acre fitting about 2000 panels, but a practical design set-up will have fewer panels.
Solar Power Output and Cost
The Solar Star farm comprises 1.7 million panels, covering 3,200 acres and is set to be eclipsed by the Gemini solar farm. Installation cost for 1 acre of solar panels is about $450,000. Depending on the specific technology, a utility-scale solar power plant may require between 5 and 10 acres per megawatt (MW) of generating capacity. Estimated costs per kilowatt for various power plants are:
- Gas/oil combined cycle power plant – $1,000/kW (2019)
- Combustion turbine – $710/kW (2020)
- Onshore wind – $1,600/kW (2019)
- Offshore wind – $6,500/kW (2019)
- Solar PV (fixed) – $1,060/kW (utility), $1,800/kW (2019)
- Solar PV (tracking)- $1,130/kW (utility), $2,000/kW (2019)
- Battery storage – varies
Solar Panel Efficiency and Home Requirements
Assuming an average solar panel efficiency of 20%, and that the solar panels receive an average of 5 peak sunlight hours per day, 1 acre of solar farm could potentially produce around 250-300 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per day. As there are 43,560 square feet in one acre, that equates to about 2,400 solar panels. However, taking into account the necessary space for accessories and movement, you can expect a maximum of 1,500-1,800 panels per acre.
Domestic solar panels have about 60 solar cells per panel compared to commercial solar panels, which have about 72 solar cells per panel.
The amount of money you can potentially profit per acre of solar panels largely depends on where you are building the solar farm and the capacity of the solar power plant. On average, 1 acre of solar panels produces about 337.5MWh of electricity per year, and with a wholesale electricity price of $83 per MWh, it’s predicted that your 1-acre solar farm can make around $28,000 annually. However, this is just an average, and the actual annual profit can range between $21,250 and $42,500 per acre.
The solar farm installation costs are estimated to be between $0.85 and $1.07 per watt of capacity. For 1,000 homes, you’d need between 4 and 8 acres of solar power panels depending on the home sizes and number of occupants. Each home with a 6-kilowatt (kW) system would require about 10 solar panels, amounting to 10,000 panels in total for 1,000 homes.