It measures the wattage of a panel when it is operating at standard test conditions.
Power produced by solar panels per square meter.
For a 300 watt solar panel with dimensions 64 inches x 39 inches 1 61 meters squared or 17 31 square feet the peak instantaneous electricity production per square foot at stc is 14 58 watts per square foot.
The power rating tells you how much power a solar panel was designed to produce.
Standard test conditions is when there is a cell temperature of 77f 25c and 1 kilowatt per square meter of solar energy shining on the panel.
For instance if the surface area is 1 500 square meters and the rating of the panel is 250 watts you would divide 250 by 1 500 and then multiply by 100 to find the percentage.
To produce the maximum amount of power per square foot a solar panel has to be well designed to handle temperature spectrum angle and amount of light.
Solar irradiance is often integrated over a given time period in order to report the radiant energy emitted into the surrounding environment joule per square metre j m 2 during that time.
The standard solar panel has an input rate of around 1000 watts per square meter and the majority of solar panels available have around 15 20.
This is typical for residential solar panels being sold in the us in 2020.
That s approximately equal to the power of the sun at noon on a sunny day at the equator.
You can freely compare solar quotes on the energysage marketplace to see how different wattage panels will affect your unique system.
Solar panels usually produce between 250 and 400 watts of power.
The actual output you see depends on factors like shading orientation and sun hours.
Therefore if your solar panel was 1 square meter in size then it would likely only produce around 150 200w in good sunlight.
In the picture above the label shows an stc rating of 250 watts for the panel.
Some people associate solar power with heat because heat is associated with lots of sunlight but if there s too much heat your solar panels may not work as effectively.
We are able to survive on earth because the energy is spread over the area of a of solar radiation is approximately 1 368 w m2 watts per square meter.
To determine an stc rating solar labs test the panels under ideal conditions called peak sun or 1000 watts of sunlight per square meter of surface.