• How big of a generator do I need?
• How many watts does my generator need to be?
• How many solar panels do I need?
• How many watts does the wind turbine need to put out to power my home?

So I made this calculator for all of you people going green and wanting to generate your own green power. You can use this calculator to calculate how many watts you need to generate to power your home. Keep in mind that this will calculate the amount of watts you need to generate for a grid tie system or an off grid system with a battery bank. If you are not using either one of these systems then you will just need a generator that can generate the same amount of watts or greater watts than your peak wattage pull at any given instance.

Please note that if your electric company supports grid tie systems and you create less power than you use, you will be charged for only the electric you used of the electric company’s. If you generate more electricity than you use the extra electricity goes to the electric company and they pay you for your unused power.

Watts Generator Calculator Usage

To use this calculator you will need to know 3 things for the formula to work, your yearly kWh usage, the inverter’s efficiency rating, and the amount of hours per day you will be generating electricity.

Yearly kWh Usage: You can find your yearly kWh usage by looking at your electric bill. Your electric bill will either have last 12 months kWh usage listed or each month’s kWh usage listed individually. If your electric bill lists yearly kWh usage enter that number. If your electric bill lists the last 12 months individually, add all 12 month’s kWh usage together and enter the number. If neither is listed you can call your electric company and ask the power company for your kWh usage.

Inverter’s Efficiency Rating: This will be listed in the inverter’s specifications sheet. You can even look this information up online on the manufacturer’s website or even on other websites that sell the inverter. I think the average inverter efficiency is around 96%. Remember do not enter the % symbol in the box below, just the number itself.

Hours Generating Electricity: This will be the average number of hours per day your generator, wind turbine, or solar panels will be generating electricity each day. If you are using a wind generator I’m sure you can look up the average wind speeds for different hours of the day for your geographical area on the internet. For those of you using solar panels to generate your electricity you will want to enter the number of hours each day you have direct sunlight. You can look up solar insolation map on the internet and find a map of your area. Remember to look up the solar insolation maps for each month and take an average. Add all the months together then divide the sum by 12 to get the average hours of sunlight for the year.

Please enter only numbers in the boxes below, do not enter any symbols. Thanks.

I hope this wattage calculator has helped you figure out what size generator, wind turbine, or solar panels you need to get for your green electricity! If you’re not sure which alternative electricity system you want to use, you can check out Solar Power vs. Wind Power Pros and Cons.

First of all kWh stands for Kilowatt Hours. This is usually what you will see on your electricity bill or electricity statement when you receive it. The electric comany knows how much electricity you are using by reading your kWh meter. You will also have the electricity cost per kWh listed on your electric bill so you know what each kWh is costing you.

A kilowatt hour is a measurment of how many kilowatts are used in a hour. Most electrical devices will have printed on them how many watts they are using, which it takes 1000 watts to equal 1 kilowatt. So a 1000 watt microwave oven running for 1 hour will use 1 kWh.

Watts is  a measurement of how much electricity that electrical device uses constantly, where kilowatt hours is how many watts that electrical device has accumulated over time. For example a 60w incandescent light bulb in your closet will use 60 watts everytime it is turned on. But if it is turned on an hour a day while you pick out your clothes that’s 30 hours that light has been on that month. That’s 1,800 watt hours or 1.8 kilowatt hours. Continue reading this information on how to calculate kWh to get the formula used to calculate your kWh usage

But for those of you that are wanting to calculate what each electrical device in your home is using then you will need to use this formula to calculate the kWh usage in your home:

( Watt Usage * Hours/Day * Days/Mo. ) / 1000 = Kilowatt Hours used that month

So for an example we have a normal incandescent light bulb that uses 60w, that we have on 16 hours every day of the month. So I can calculate how many kWh this incandescent light bulb is using every month by using this formula:

60w * 16 hours/day * 30.5 days/mo / 1000 = 29.28 kWh per month

After you know how many kilawatt hours a device is using you can multiply this kWh by the cost per kWh that is stated on your electric bill:

kWh * Cost/kWh = Cost per month

So using the 60w incandescent light bulb example, which was using 29.28 kWh/mo.:

29.28 kWh * $0.10/kWh = $2.928/mo.

So a single 60w incandescent light bulb will cost you $2.93/mo.

NOTE: This is based on $0.10/kWh and also I have the amount of days per month 30.5, I figured this way I don’t have to figure out if this month is 30 days or 31 days.

You have to know how many watts a device is using before you can use any of the formulas found in the information above. Most devices will have the wattage printed on the electrical device somewhere. If your electrical device does not have the wattage printed on it but it does have amperage printed on it, please look at Volt Amp Watt Convert to learn how to convert amps to watts. If your electrical device does not have amperage or wattage printed on it, then you will have to learn How to Measure Amperage with a Multimeter.

For those of you that find calculating your kWh usage using the kWh formula too complicated you can purchase a kWh meter to measure kWh usage.

For anyone that would like to use Go Green in Your Home’s kWh calculator you can check out Calculater to Calculate Kwh

Thank you for reading this information on How to Calculate kWh on Go Green in Your Home. Go Green in Your Home hopes this information has helped you calculate each of your electrical devices kWh usage so you know how much electricity you are using. For more tips on how to save electricity or save the environment continue reading through Go Green in Your Home!

But for those electrical devices in your home that have volts and amps or volts and watts  printed you can convert amps to  watts or convert watts to amps depending on what measurement you want.

If your electrical device in your home has the voltage and amperage printed on it you can convert this to watts by multiplying the voltage and amperage.

Voltage * Amperage = Wattage

So if you have a laptop that has 20 volt 4.5 amp printed on the power supply then that power supply is capable of using 90 watts.

20 volts * 4.5 amps = 90 watts

Pretty simple to convert volts and amps to watts. For those of your electrical devices that have voltage and wattage printed on the power supply, you can convert volts and watts to amps simply by dividing the wattage by the voltage.

Wattage / Voltage = Amperage

Now if your laptop’s power supply has 20 volt 90 watts printed on it, then you can take the watts and divide them by the voltage to get the amperage.

90 watts / 20 volts = 4.5 amps

Now if your electrical device does not show the voltage, amperage, or wattage you can use a multimeter to measure the voltage and amperage, then convert this to wattage.

Thank you for reading this tutorial on how to convert amps, volts, and watts. If you have any questions please leave a comment on this conversion formula and Go Green in Your Home will try to respond back as soon as possible. For more tips on saving electricity or ways to go green continue reading through Go Green in Your Home! Have a great day!