White House To Produce Enough Solar Power For 44 Minutes Of TV Watching

The Obama administration recently announced it had finished installing 44 kilowatt hours of solar panels on parts of the White House roof, just in time for the president to announce his plan to push more solar panel and energy efficiency policies.


The administration says that the White House solar panels will provide 6.3 kilowatts of power when the sun is shining. But the sun has to be at the right angle for solar power to generate enough power, which only happens between six and seven hours of the day (with lots of exceptions of course).

White House solar panels will generate about 44 kilowatt hours of electricity per day (6.3 kilowatts multiplied by 7 hours). This may sound like a lot of solar power, but it’s not when taken into context.

Data from TradeWindEnergy.com shows that one 100-watt lightbulb running for 20 hours will use 2 kilowatt hours of electrcity. This means that the White House’s solar panels can power 22 of these light bulbs for 20 hours.

Data from the Energy Department (DOE) also shows that the White House solar panels will likely deliver underwhelming results. DOE says that televisions use between 65 and 170 watts of power (varies based on size). This means that the White House solar array would only be able to power about 44 minutes of television per day on a 19 inch screen TV.

Despite the small power output, the White House is arguing that its solar array will encourage more households to buy solar.




According to the Energy Information Administration, “the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,837 kWh, an average of 903 kilowatthours (kWh) per month” in 2012.



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