With rising electricity energy prices and the demand for energy increasing over the past few years, there has also been an increase in demand for alternative energy. These alternative energies include energy that has been extracted from natural elements such as the sun, water, and wind. Solar energy is one of the popular forms of clean and sustainable energy available. As it is primarily derived from the sunlight, it is far easier to generate, thereby, leading to more and more companies seeking to install solar farms.
If you are interested in setting up your own solar power plant farm, then our guide will help you to understand all the solar farm land requirements, so read on to know more about what you require.
Land
One of the main prerequisites of starting a solar farm is having a substantial amount of space. This space can be on the ground or on the rooftops and will also depend on the solar farm land requirements of the region you live in. However, for solar farm land to produce the right amount of solar energy, you will need to have a considerable amount of space. For instance, if you are looking to start a 100 MW solar power plant, then you will need at least 10% more farm land than a thermal power plant.
Cost
Another important solar farm land requirement is the cost of setting up the plant. There are multiple factors that influence the cost of a solar farm. These can range from the place where the land is located to the size of the land to available sunlight hours.
When you are deciding to set up a solar farm, you should remember that the ideal size of a solar farm that provides utility scale solar power should be at least 1 MW. This farm would easily provide energy to over 20 households. The cost for this solar farm would be around $1 million.
Farm land per megawatt
When you are calculating the total land required for setting up a solar power installation, you should also keep in mind the factors that will consume additional space. There are two main factors to pay attention to – these are the solar panels and the structural components needed to set up the panels. If you have these handy, then you can easily estimate the required farm land and the cost required but the future of solar energy is bridge for us.
The total farm land required would also depend on the type of technology that you are using to set up the farm. For instance, If you are planning to set up a 1 MW solar power plant using crystalline technology, then you would need at least 4 acres of land. Similarly, if you are looking to use thin-film technology, then each of your 1kw solar panels will need at least 100 sq.ft area.
The above would serve as a guide to give you an idea of how much land would you roughly require to set up a solar farm.