Off-grid, RV & cabin
Enter your acreage, water demand per acre, and well depth. Get the solar panel wattage needed to pump enough water for your crops.
How it works
Step 1
Crop type and irrigation method both change how much water an acre actually needs per day.
Step 2
Total head, not just well depth, determines the real pumping energy required.
Step 3
This converts your daily water need and total head into the solar capacity needed to pump it.
For 2 acres needing 2,000 gallons a day each, pumped from 100 feet of well depth plus 10 feet of additional lift, roughly 578 watts of solar covers the daily pumping energy at 6 peak sun hours. Irrigation typically needs a meaningfully larger system than livestock watering due to the much higher water volume involved, even on a modest plot. Once you have that number, the annual maintenance cost estimator shows what it means for the rest of the system. The real comparison is against a grid connection. The payback period calculator in our Savings & Payback section can help you weigh the system cost against what the grid would charge.
Vegetable crops commonly need around 1,500 to 2,500 gallons per acre per day during peak growing season, though this varies significantly by crop type, soil composition, and local climate. Drip irrigation systems typically use less water than overhead sprinklers for the same coverage, since they deliver water directly to the root zone rather than spraying it across a wider area where evaporation and runoff waste a meaningful share. For the official wording, see the USDA NRCS's irrigation water management guidance.
Crop irrigation typically moves far more total daily water volume than livestock drinking water, since even a small garden plot needs thousands of gallons a day during peak season compared to the tens of gallons per head that livestock actually drink. This difference in scale is why an irrigation pump sizing calculation lands so much higher than the equivalent for watering a herd, even at similar well depths.
Drip irrigation's water efficiency advantage translates directly into a smaller required solar system, since less total volume needs to be pumped for the same crop coverage. The tradeoff is higher upfront installation cost and more complex setup compared to overhead sprinklers, so weigh the reduced ongoing solar and pump sizing against the initial investment for your specific operation. USDA's overview of irrigation techniques compares both approaches in more depth, and USDA NRCS's irrigation water management guidance covers water management practices that can reduce total pumping need further.
If you're also watering livestock from the same or a nearby well, check the solar for livestock watering calculator for that separate load, and compare against remote property off-grid cost if you're weighing a full off-grid buildout for the property. For the electrical side of running a pump motor, the inverter sizing for motor loads in our inverters and equipment tools covers the surge current a pump motor draws at startup, and the annual maintenance cost estimator in our maintenance and lifespan tools budgets for keeping a pump system like this running over the years.
Questions An off-grid system lives or dies on upkeep. The roof penetration maintenance cost tool in our Maintenance & Lifespan section can help you plan cleaning and inspection costs over the years.
For 2 acres needing 2,000 gallons a day each, pumped from 100 feet of well depth plus 10 feet of additional lift, roughly 578 watts of solar covers the daily pumping energy at 6 peak sun hours. Irrigation typically needs a meaningfully larger system than livestock watering due to the higher water volume involved.
Vegetable crops commonly need around 1,500 to 2,500 gallons per acre per day during peak growing season, though this varies significantly by crop type, soil, and climate. Drip irrigation systems typically use less water than overhead sprinklers for the same coverage.
Crop irrigation typically moves far more total daily water volume than livestock drinking water, since even a small garden plot needs thousands of gallons a day during peak season compared to the tens of gallons per head that livestock drink.
Yes, often significantly. Drip irrigation delivers water directly to the root zone with far less evaporation and runoff loss than overhead sprinklers, which can reduce total water volume needed for the same crop coverage and shrink the pump and panel sizing accordingly.
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