How much money can you save with a 1 kW rooftop solar unit?

To check the amount of money you can save with a 1 kWh rooftop solar unit you need to first calculate how much electricity it can generates. This depends on a number of factors.

First and foremost is the place where you have installed your rooftop solar unit. They geography of a place plays a very important factor in determining how much electricity is generated by solar panels.

According to research done by two Universities in the US – one from Oregon and another

from Utah, the solar panels provide most efficiency in places with most sunlight (high DNI which is a measure of amount of sunlight available) but not too high air temperatures.

Initially, it was thought that since deserts are abundant with sunlight they are the best places for producing solar energy. But owing to high temperature the efficiency of solar panels drops. Above 78 °F (25.55 °C), the hotter it gets, higher the loss of efficiency of solar panels become.

Apart from temperature, solar panels works best in regions with light winds and low humidity.

So a 1 kW rooftop solar unit will be most efficient in a temperate climate.

Thus, the same 1 kW solar PV power plant could generate more than 5 kWh during some summer days and less than 3 kWh during winter days.

The averaged over the year comes to the range of 3-4.5 kWh/day/kW.

So, let us calculate the amount of money saved for the year.

We get anywhere between 1080 to 1620 units of electricity per year from a 1 kW solar panels unit.

Now multiply the units of electricity produced by the cost of electricity charged by your power company.

Cost of per unit of electricity in India is anywhere between Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per unit.

The overall savings from a 1 kW solar rooftop unit can be anywhere between Rs 5,400 on the lower side to Rs. 16,200 on the higher side.

To check the PV power potential of different places on the earth refer to the map below.

By © The World Bank, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73047798

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