What Size Solar Generator Do I Need For A 3 Bedroom House?

According to Flex, the average utility bill for a 3 bedroom house ranges between $87 to $93 a month. 

Now, if we consider the rough average retail cost of residential electricity at $0.15 per kWh, we can surmise that the average 3 bedroom home in the U.S. uses between 1305 kWh and 1395 kWh a month. 

Now of course, this amount is largely dependent on which state you live in as electricity vary state to state. 

Why are we telling you all this? 

Well, which size solar generator you need to power your 3 bedroom home all comes down to how much electricity your home uses in the first place. 

Anyone who tells you, you need this size solar generator to power that 3 bedroom home is inaccurate. They are inaccurate unless they know that 3 bedroom homes energy consumption. 

In this article, we will show you how to correctly calculate solar generator size based on your home's energy consumption. 

How much electricity do you use?

No 3 bedroom home consumes the same amount of electricity. This depends on the total amount of people living there, their habits, the appliances they use, and for how long they use them. 

So many factors go into electricity consumption beyond the actual size of your home. 

Before we can size your solar generator, we need to establish how much electricity you use. 

The easiest way to do this is to take a look at your monthly utility bill. It should show your consumption in kWh. 

Your bill could look something like this: 

You will likely notice that your energy consumption varies throughout the year. This is true, especially in very hot or very cold locations. 

Once you have determined how much electricity you use each month, we need to average it out to get a rough monthly usage. Simply take your yearly consumption and divide it by 12 (months). 

For example, let's assume you use 15,900 kWh a year. 15,900kWh / 12 = 1325 kWh a month, or 44 kWh a day. 

What size solar generator will you need? 

Now that we have determined your energy consumption, it becomes much easier to determine what size solar generator you need to meet your energy requirements. 

But, before we continue, it is important to note that solar generators are not designed to take your home completely as is, off the grid. 

Solar generators are designed as a means of backup power supply for when you need it most. Say, for example, during a power outage. 

Therefore, they are made to power critical appliances. With this in mind, we urge you to make a list of all the critical appliances in your home you want to power with a solar generator should the power go out. 

Make a table (like the one below) and list out each appliance, their wattage rating, and the amount of time you want to use them. Then simply multiply the time by the wattage rating to get the total energy consumption. 

As we can see, our energy consumption is sitting around 6110Wh (6.1kWh). Therefore, if we aim to power the same appliances for the same amount of time, we are going to need a solar generator that has at least 6110 Wh of energy capacity. 

The best solar generator we would recommend for a home that has a similar energy requirement is either the: 

• AC300
• AC500

Both these solar generators are modular, meaning you are able to increase its energy capacity by attaching external battery modules as you see fit. 

For example, the AC300 is capable of 3072 Wh to 12,288 Wh. 

The AC500 solar generator supports up to 6 external battery modules taking your energy capacity up to 18,432 Wh. 

Both solar generator models are capable of being paired with a second solar generator meaning you can add an additional 4 battery modules to the AC300 and additional 6 battery modules to the AC500. 

Taking the total energy capacity to: 

• AC300: 24,576 Wh
• AC500: 36,864 Wh

Final Thoughts

As you can see, the solar generator we recommend for 3 bedroom homes, or pretty much any home looking for as much grid dependence as possible, is either the AC300 or AC500. 

They are both capable of large amount of energy storage. 

The biggest difference between the two generators is their rated power rating. 

The AC300 sits at 3000 watts, and the AC500 sits at 5000 watts. What this means is if you aim to power more appliances at the same time, we recommend the solar generator with the higher wattage rating.

In this case that is the AC500. 

To establish this you can look back at the table you made. Just like you added together the total energy usage, you can add together the total wattage rating of all your appliances listed.

Now of course, it is quite easy to see that it is unlikely you are going to be powering these appliances at the same time.

However, your situation could be different, that is why we urge you to create a list like this to find out what is realistic for you.