solar power panels
approximately how many americans are currently using solar panels/power?
please include source. 
thanks!
We can try to set some bounds on the number by looking at the official report linked below, which is only for California.
By “Americans,” I’m going to assume you mean citizens of the USA, not the greater Americas.
California leads the nation by far in solar installations, so whatever number we get from there should be more than half the nation.
Also, I’m considering only photovoltaic installations. If solar hot water is considered, the number may be a magnitude greater, and Hawaii probably leads in per capita installations.
According to the report, California had 350 MW of solar installed and reported for the sake of incentives. This included about 2800 applications in the most recent quarter, representing 33.2 MW of power. If that ratio holds true, then the average installation is 12 kW, and there should be about 30,000 installations in the State. I think that number is low, because older installations tend to be smaller. If we think the average system is really 3 kW overall, then that’s 120,000 installations. If each installation stands in lieu of a family of 4, then that’s about half a million people.
That number does not include the people who installed off-grid solar electric, and never qualified for any incentives. I would think that wouldn’t increase the number by more than 5%, though.
You might try contacting the Solar Electric Industries Association to get more solid numbers.
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