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How much land, time, and money, per citizen, would it take to put down enough solar cells to generate each person's basic electrical supply? Is it less than $5K

How much land, time, and money, per citizen, would it take to put down enough solar cells to generate each person's basic electrical supply? Is it less than $5K?

zeofig 18d ago
It's $(a lot) because only a tiny fraction of the population can live without goods delivered and produced by diesel fuel.
- saturn8601 18d ago
  You are assuming the supply of diesel goes to 0. Instead there is a reduction, not elimination and as a result, demand destruction will happen in the US just as its been happening for months outside the US. (This is partially what allowed us to avoid a crisis in March) Trucks will stop delivering trash (ex. China dollar store crap, lower margin non food items and a billion other nonessential items). Food prices go up, people will do without less desserts or fancy foods but enough deliveries continue with the fuel saved that no one starves. Now imagine if we replaced only 10% of diesel trucks with electric. Hell just focus on the short haul trucks. That unburned diesel could have helped buffer the remaining fleet.
lazide 18d ago
only a tiny portion of per-individual energy needs are currently electric. roughly guess, 10% or less. diesel is widely used for things like shipping and other supply chain stuff, so expect knock-on price impacts.
- saturn8601 18d ago
  Such a shame the US didn't switch at least some of the fleet to electric years ago when it had a chance. Total stupidity. Even to this day my local MAGA town balks at solar panels and just laughs at people who install them. Reality will smack them in the face sooner or later. Right now they are blaming the democratic governor because they only provided a tiny bill credit to citizens to help reduce rates but totally ignoring how the Republican promised nothing.
  - lazide 18d ago
    trains. semi-trucks. international cargo ships. airplanes. semi-trucks might be viable electrically, none of the other options currently are.
    - tw_dfhjkdsf798 18d ago
      [dead]
    - saturn8601 18d ago
      My point was that switching the avenues that can be electrified to electric solutions improves supply to the remaining modes that require fuel.
      - lazide 18d ago
        we’re talking 1-2% of demand. it would help, but not a lot.
    - soco 18d ago
      You mean electric trains are not viable in the US? In Europe most tracks are electric already.
      - lazide 18d ago
        generally no. the US has wide swathes of relatively undeveloped land, unlike Europe. Diesel electric is the norm for long haul. it wouldn’t be impossible to electrify, but outside of a few specific intra-city corridors, no one has spent the capital to try.
shoobiedoo 18d ago
I looked into this living in Japan and tired of the electric bill after running AC 24/7 for three months when it's 35 degrees at 65% humidity. $5500 in solar panels including a battery would be just enough to keep the AC on all summer, and that's being fairly high on the temperature, around 26. So based on cost alone and not power draw, with the AC off you could comfortably power a fridge, PC, and water heater, I guess? But I'm talking out my ass here
- anukin 18d ago
  I have done a grid based setup at my house in India and it cost us close to 3k for a 5kw setup with 4 acs. Planning for a complete off grid solution once the efficient panels like hjt and sodium cells become common place. Right now we have acid batteries and they are not very comfortable to handle.
- lefra 18d ago
  Converting Sun to electricity to power a water heater is suboptimal. The water can be heated directly by the Sun. If you can put a water tank above the solar panel, you don't even need a pump.
  - ericd 18d ago
    If it powers a heat pump water heater, it's pretty efficient, and much less plumbing involved.
  - ButlerianJihad 18d ago
    This is true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House#Carter_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House... It is also true that solar water heating has unpleasant failure modes.
  - 3eb7988a1663 18d ago
    From a purely efficiency standpoint, yes, but practically, electricity->heat is a lot cheaper to install. Plumbing is messy, and bolting on a water circulation system to a roof is harder than delivering more joules over the wires.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
ericd 18d ago
Our house is all-electric. We have a 60 panel, 24 kw array that would probably cover all of our needs if it weren't shaded in the afternoon, and we have a real winter here, so the heat pump runs hard, and we use a substantial amount of electricity. About 1250 square feet of panels in total. Equipment costs about $20k-$30k in the US, not including batteries or electrician install. The actual array was pretty easy to set up. On the global market, you can get the equipment for much less, the same inverter is a fraction of the cost that the UL listed American company version costs, the panels are a good bit less. But in the US, this stuff gets marked up pretty hard. If your main load is for summer A/C, with a mild winter, the generation and usage line up much better.
- shoobiedoo 18d ago
  Yeah things are very frugal here (my wife is especially frugal) so without AC it's pretty much just PC, two fridges, water heater, knickknacks like toaster, foodprocessor, etc. Stove and grill is gas, and kerosene heaters for when it drops below 10c. We could easily get by with a grid well below 10k usd I'm guessing
JumpCrisscross 18d ago
It looks like solar can already power about a third of American household demand, and is on track to get to two thirds within five years [1]. (Commercial and utility is leading the acceleration, even into Q2 2026.) That said, we're hitting 2030 with ~20% of American electricity coming from solar and wind versus 40 to 60% under the IRA baselines. We may wind up in a long-term spiral where our adversaries have not only more manufacturing capability and structurally lower labour costs, but structurally cheaper energy, too. [1] https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/ https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/
Aurornis 18d ago
Electrical generation is largely separate from imported crude oil (what the article is about). It takes a lot more than $5K to build a system that can replace a household's energy use. For 24 hour coverage you need substantial battery capacity, too. To cover theoretical EV charging it gets even more expensive. Prices continue to come down, but it still takes a lot to actually replace all of a household's energy usage with solar.

How much land, time, and money, per citizen, would it take to put down enough solar cells to generate each person's basic electrical supply? Is it less than $5K?

zeofig 18d ago

It's $(a lot) because only a tiny fraction of the population can live without goods delivered and produced by diesel fuel.

saturn8601 18d ago
You are assuming the supply of diesel goes to 0. Instead there is a reduction, not elimination and as a result, demand destruction will happen in the US just as its been happening for months outside the US. (This is partially what allowed us to avoid a crisis in March) Trucks will stop delivering trash (ex. China dollar store crap, lower margin non food items and a billion other nonessential items). Food prices go up, people will do without less desserts or fancy foods but enough deliveries continue with the fuel saved that no one starves. Now imagine if we replaced only 10% of diesel trucks with electric. Hell just focus on the short haul trucks. That unburned diesel could have helped buffer the remaining fleet.

lazide 18d ago

only a tiny portion of per-individual energy needs are currently electric. roughly guess, 10% or less. diesel is widely used for things like shipping and other supply chain stuff, so expect knock-on price impacts.

saturn8601 18d ago
Such a shame the US didn't switch at least some of the fleet to electric years ago when it had a chance. Total stupidity. Even to this day my local MAGA town balks at solar panels and just laughs at people who install them. Reality will smack them in the face sooner or later. Right now they are blaming the democratic governor because they only provided a tiny bill credit to citizens to help reduce rates but totally ignoring how the Republican promised nothing.
- lazide 18d ago
  trains. semi-trucks. international cargo ships. airplanes. semi-trucks might be viable electrically, none of the other options currently are.
  - tw_dfhjkdsf798 18d ago
    [dead]
  - saturn8601 18d ago
    My point was that switching the avenues that can be electrified to electric solutions improves supply to the remaining modes that require fuel.
    - lazide 18d ago
      we’re talking 1-2% of demand. it would help, but not a lot.
  - soco 18d ago
    You mean electric trains are not viable in the US? In Europe most tracks are electric already.
    - lazide 18d ago
      generally no. the US has wide swathes of relatively undeveloped land, unlike Europe. Diesel electric is the norm for long haul. it wouldn’t be impossible to electrify, but outside of a few specific intra-city corridors, no one has spent the capital to try.

shoobiedoo 18d ago

I looked into this living in Japan and tired of the electric bill after running AC 24/7 for three months when it's 35 degrees at 65% humidity. $5500 in solar panels including a battery would be just enough to keep the AC on all summer, and that's being fairly high on the temperature, around 26. So based on cost alone and not power draw, with the AC off you could comfortably power a fridge, PC, and water heater, I guess? But I'm talking out my ass here

anukin 18d ago
I have done a grid based setup at my house in India and it cost us close to 3k for a 5kw setup with 4 acs. Planning for a complete off grid solution once the efficient panels like hjt and sodium cells become common place. Right now we have acid batteries and they are not very comfortable to handle.
lefra 18d ago
Converting Sun to electricity to power a water heater is suboptimal. The water can be heated directly by the Sun. If you can put a water tank above the solar panel, you don't even need a pump.
- ericd 18d ago
  If it powers a heat pump water heater, it's pretty efficient, and much less plumbing involved.
- ButlerianJihad 18d ago
  This is true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House#Carter_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House... It is also true that solar water heating has unpleasant failure modes.
- 3eb7988a1663 18d ago
  From a purely efficiency standpoint, yes, but practically, electricity->heat is a lot cheaper to install. Plumbing is messy, and bolting on a water circulation system to a roof is harder than delivering more joules over the wires.

deleted 18d ago

[deleted]

ericd 18d ago

Our house is all-electric. We have a 60 panel, 24 kw array that would probably cover all of our needs if it weren't shaded in the afternoon, and we have a real winter here, so the heat pump runs hard, and we use a substantial amount of electricity. About 1250 square feet of panels in total. Equipment costs about $20k-$30k in the US, not including batteries or electrician install. The actual array was pretty easy to set up. On the global market, you can get the equipment for much less, the same inverter is a fraction of the cost that the UL listed American company version costs, the panels are a good bit less. But in the US, this stuff gets marked up pretty hard. If your main load is for summer A/C, with a mild winter, the generation and usage line up much better.

shoobiedoo 18d ago
Yeah things are very frugal here (my wife is especially frugal) so without AC it's pretty much just PC, two fridges, water heater, knickknacks like toaster, foodprocessor, etc. Stove and grill is gas, and kerosene heaters for when it drops below 10c. We could easily get by with a grid well below 10k usd I'm guessing

JumpCrisscross 18d ago

It looks like solar can already power about a third of American household demand, and is on track to get to two thirds within five years [1]. (Commercial and utility is leading the acceleration, even into Q2 2026.) That said, we're hitting 2030 with ~20% of American electricity coming from solar and wind versus 40 to 60% under the IRA baselines. We may wind up in a long-term spiral where our adversaries have not only more manufacturing capability and structurally lower labour costs, but structurally cheaper energy, too. [1] https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/ https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/

Aurornis 18d ago

Electrical generation is largely separate from imported crude oil (what the article is about). It takes a lot more than $5K to build a system that can replace a household's energy use. For 24 hour coverage you need substantial battery capacity, too. To cover theoretical EV charging it gets even more expensive. Prices continue to come down, but it still takes a lot to actually replace all of a household's energy usage with solar.