When we use thin film technology a 1mw plant will require an average of 4 5 to 5 acres of land.
Average lifespan of a 1 mw solar panel farm.
How long do they last.
For example for a 1 mw solar power plant installation the solar farm land requirements would be around 4 acres when using a crystalline technology.
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.
The economies of scale concept is in full effect in the solar industry.
Topaz solar farm is a 550 megawatt mw ac photovoltaic power station in san luis obispo county california construction on the project began in november 2011 and ended in november 2014.
In other terms we can say that for each 1 kw of solar panels you need 100 sqft of an area on.
Meanwhile that value sounds unusually low in comparison to typical costs associated with residential solar 3 to 4 dollars per watt.
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.
One mw is equal to one million watts.
Therefore you can assume that a 1 mw solar farm would cost roughly 1 million to install.
Solar panel lifespan guide.
Although the upfront cost may appear to be large your monthly savings on electricity bills and tax incentives surely lowers the overall cost of a solar power system installation.
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.