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Does the size of the PV panel matter?
Dodane przez: admin April 11, 2022
The dimensions of photovoltaic panels often have a direct impact on how much of the installation can be placed on the roof of the building and thus how much electricity it will generate. Not every house cover is perfect and large enough to fit any set of cells. Therefore, when planning an investment in RES, it is worth looking at the standard sizes of photovoltaic panels. Knowing the most popular values, you can easily estimate the size of the entire installation.
The size of PV panel – which size do we usually choose?
On the market, we can find several versions of photovoltaic panels that differ in the number of cells, and therefore also in dimensions and weight. There are, among others models with 48, 60, 72, 120 and 140 cells. There are many opinions about the popularity of individual versions, but in home installations, solar panels with 60 or 72 cells are the most often chosen. Larger models are used in solar farms and other large projects.
Panels with 60 links (the average dimensions of one link are 15 x 15 cm) are usually 165-170 cm long, 100-105 cm wide and approx. 4-5 cm thick. Their weight does not exceed 20 kg. When selecting modules, apart from their dimensions, you need to pay attention to their efficiency. By combining these values, it is easy to calculate how much the roof surface should be in order to be able to mount the installation that will allow to obtain the specified power. For example – an installation with a power of 5 kW with panels in standard dimensions and a power of 300 W requires approx. 30 m² of free roof space.
The smallest solar panels – when are they useful?
Not all roofs can be fitted with the most popular photovoltaic panels. The sizes of the standard versions may turn out to be too large in the case of a roof covering in a complicated form, with a lot of shading or a delicate structure. In this case, you can opt for smaller modules, which, however, should be characterized by higher efficiency to provide the installation with the required power. The most compact photovoltaic panels include models with the above-mentioned 48 cells. Their dimensions are approx. 130 cm long and 95 cm wide, and their weight is approx. 17 kg.