Solar Panels, 1kw per hour or day ?

Question

Solar panel packages have different levels of power. For instance you can get a 1kw system but is this 1 kw per hour or day. How does this work?

Answer 1

it would be an instantaneous rating at maximum output.  To get the the amount of power produced, you would multiply the number of hours at near peak output.  1kw X 5 hours = 5kwh or about 50 cents of electricity.

Answer 2

That means if you stick a watt meter on the output when there is maximum design sunlight on it you will get 1 kw. If you shine the maximum design sunlight on it for 1 hour then you get 1 kw hour of power. In one day you get 24kw hours assuming you can get 24 hours of maximum design sunlight.

Your home electric bill is typically in kw hours. At the macro level power is traded at megawatt hours.

Answer 3

1 kW is the unit of measurement used.  1 kWh means you have 1 kW steady for an entire hour.  In the case of solar panels, say you are using 100W panels.  That means at any given time assuming ample sunlight is hitting the panel, it is producing 100W.

You wanted a kW so you will need ten panels at 100W (less or more depending on the rating of the panel) this will give you 1kW.  That means at any given time you can get as many watts as needed up to 1kW (1000W).  Say the sun hits the panels for eight hours a day, you will have 1kWh each of those eight hours, or 8kWh per day.  Unless you have a system of batteries to capture unused power, you will only be able to use up to 1kW (1000W) at any given time, any unused power will be wasted.

Solar panels alone are not like a generator, they do not slow down or speed up depending on demand.  Even with no load on them, they will produce as much power as they are able, and without batteries that power is lost.

To simply answer your question, if you get a 1kW system, that means 1kW per hour.