How Many Panels Are Needed To Run A Solar Pump?

Today’s question is, “How many panels do I need to run a pump?” And the answer to that is, it depends. We have two classes of pumps. We have pumps that are designed specifically to run with solar and we have a more classic AC pump.

So the pumps that are designed to run on solar are slightly more efficient. We run those pumps with anywhere from 2 -100 watt panels (so that’s 200 watts) up to around 800 or 1200 watts of power. Those tend to be smaller pumps, ranging anywhere from a 1/4 of a horsepower up to around 1 horsepower.

Then we have more of a classic style AC pump that we can run with the specialized solar controller or we can run off of our WaterSecure System, which is a big inverter that can operate these AC pumps.

So, with those systems, we are starting at around 1/2 horsepower and we’re going up to around 100 horsepower (which is quite a large pump). For the 1/2 horsepower, we’re going to run that with around 8 solar panels or 800 watts. Then we get up to that large system (up to 100 horsepower), we’re going to be using around 320 panels. Those panels are 375 watts. And so that’s gonna be running with 120,000 watts of power.

Now, that’s not a very common large system. Our most common system in this range is running from 1/2 horsepower up to around 7.5 to 10 horsepower, which is very reasonable to install in your field and keep your irrigation, your household or any other water supply that needs a larger volume, running.