System sizing
Enter just your home's square footage for a 5-second ballpark. Deliberately simple, with links below to more precise tools for a tighter number.
This is a deliberately quick, one-input estimate. For a real number, use the fixed-size home tools or the full calculator instead.
How it works
Step 1
Total conditioned floor area, the space you actually heat and cool. This tool applies one national average usage rate to that number, nothing else.
Step 2
You'll get a rough panel count and system size in seconds, useful for a first gut check before you talk to anyone or run a more detailed tool.
Step 3
If your home is close to 1,500, 2,000, 2,500, or 3,000 sq ft, the matching fixed-size tool asks for your real insulation, climate, and occupancy. The full solar panel calculator works for any size.
This tool multiplies your square footage by 5.88 kWh per year, a national average residential usage rate derived from EIA's residential energy consumption data, then converts that into panels and system size. A 2,000 sq ft home comes out to about 9.2 kW, 23 panels. That's it, no other questions asked.
Most tools on this site ask about insulation, climate, and occupancy because those factors can each shift a real estimate by 15 to 25%. This tool skips all of that on purpose, trading precision for speed, for someone who wants a number right now rather than a form to fill out. For context, single-family homes in the South average roughly 14,000 kWh annually, while comparable homes in milder western regions use far less, a spread the Energy Information Administration's 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey documents.
For a 2,000 sq ft home, the precise fixed-size tool gives a range from about 4.8 kW (newer, well-insulated, mild climate, away most days) to about 15.2 kW (older, poorly-insulated, hot climate, home most days, with net metering). This quick estimate lands at 9.2 kW, comfortably inside that range, since it assumes average conditions throughout.
If you're just browsing, comparing a few home sizes, or want a number before you've settled on a house, this is a reasonable starting point. If you're getting quotes or making a purchase decision, switch to a tool that asks about your actual home, and check the financing cost per watt calculator once real quotes are in hand.
Use the fixed-size home tools if your home is close to a common size, or the monthly usage tool if you have a recent utility bill handy, since actual usage always beats any square-footage estimate. Once you have a system size in mind, the annual kWh output estimator can project what it would actually produce at your location.
Questions
It's a rough starting point, not a final number. A 2,000 sq ft home lands at about 9.2 kW using this quick estimate, but the same home could realistically need anywhere from 4.8 kW to 15.2 kW depending on insulation, climate, and occupancy, factors this tool doesn't ask about on purpose.
This is a deliberate 5-second estimate for someone who just wants a ballpark number fast. The fixed-size home tools and the full solar panel calculator ask for insulation, climate, and occupancy separately for a meaningfully more accurate result.
It multiplies your square footage by 5.88 kWh per year, a national average residential rate, then converts that annual usage into panels and system size using standard 400-watt panels and 4.5 peak sun hours a day. No insulation, climate, or occupancy adjustment is applied.
If your home is close to 1,500, 2,000, 2,500, or 3,000 sq ft, the matching fixed-size tool asks for your real insulation, climate, and occupancy details. Otherwise, the full solar panel calculator or a usage-based tool works from your actual electricity usage instead of home size.