Only 100 square miles of solar panels are required to power the entire United States page: 1

jadamz

the Countess
Tier-1 Mod
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
Messages
50,654
Reaction score
33,448
Points
223
Only 100 square miles of solar panels are required to power the entire United States, page 1


If you wanted to power the entire United States with solar panels, it would take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire United States,

The batteries you need to store the energy, so you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1 mile. One square-mile.

It’s a little square on the U.S. map, and then there’s a little pixel inside there, and that’s the size of the battery park that you need to support that. Real tiny.
 
Not sure if I buy this
 
Not sure if I buy this
That adds up to about 10,000 square miles. Maybe not America but I dont see any problem with that setup running Canada.

I'd be really hesitant about one single location powering an entire nation. All it would take is one assault on the location and it could cause province/state wide power outages, if not nation wide outages. An EMP attack would be easier to recover from.