Solar Powered States

Solar power is on the rise in America and the International Energy Agency predicts that solar power will make 16% of the world’s electricity by 2050.

That’s quite a lot of energy and it got us thinking, what would it actually take to make 100% of the world’s electricity via solar power? Could America actually power the world with solar panels? And what could each state power if we filled them with solar panels? We crunched the numbers and came up with some interesting results.

No surprises but the largest states of Alaska, Texas, and California can house the most solar panels and also produce the most power with Alaska being able to generate a whopping 1 trillion kilowatts of energy, Texas 450 billion kilowatts, and California 274 billion kilowatts from just 4 hours of sunlight in a day.

Feeling neighborly? From Europe to the United Arab Emirates, each individual state can meet a wide range of countries energy needs for an entire year from just four hours of sunlight! Alaska can power Russia for an entire year, Texas could power France, New York Rwanda, and California Saudi Arabia to name but a few.

When it comes to powering the world, if America was one giant solar panel it would take just 16 hours of sunlight to power the entire world for 1 year. In 1 year it could power 105 years of energy use in the world.