Within the specifications of solar panels, without exceptions, we discuss the term Peak Power. This could be quite confusing, because we tend to express our own power consumption in kWh (kilo-Watt hour). It therefore makes sense to convert Peak Power to kWh. While there are many international manufacturers of solar panels, there’s also a lot of variation in Peak Power. We are using the Trina Solar panels with 390 Peak Power.
Over here in South Africa, average conditions are basically not as optimal as they are in test environments. This is a direct result of the different gradients of, inter alia, roofs and weather conditions in South Africa. In most cases, the real efficiency of a solar panel lies somewhere between 85 and 90 percent. We’d like to take 88% as an average number. This is why, if you want to convert Peak Power to kWh, we use the following formula: 1 PP ≈ 0,88 kWh.
Examples of Peak Power for solar panels
The energy market is growing and developing rapidly. Over the years, we have seen the Peak Power of solar panels increase. Solar panels have greatly improved compared to say 10 years ago. Where back then a 250 Peak Power solar panel was quite rare, we now witness solar panels with 350, 390 or even 450 Peak Power. As we’ve shown above, the efficiency of solar panels grows along with the dimensions. It is thus possible that a neighbor – with the same roof – installed more solar panels compared to you, but generates less energy. We are happy to give you some examples:
- 350 Peak Power
- 390 Peak Power
- 450 Peak Power
We also would like to motivate why we are opting for the 390 Peak Power solar panels at the moment. Just visit the link about 390 Peak power.
