So what you see is indeed as mentions in his/her answer, even if that started as a rather vague one-line answer. Image source and credit: International Space Station - Facts and Figures It stores excess collected power in batteries for when the station doesn't generate electric power with its photovoltaics (that's where that average comes from, lower than its maximum output), but more importantly to your question, they're roughly the size of a U.S. They generate roughly up to 120 kW of power (on average about 84 kW) needed by the station's large number of equipment, life support, experiments.

What's perhaps not best known is that the station's solar panel arrays are double-sided to also collect some of the sunlight reflected off the Earth's albedo (what our planet reflects from the Sun). What you can see from the ground is however this: But none of these lights are nearly as powerful enough to see them from at least 410 km (254 miles) which is station's current orbital altitude and would be the minimum distance between you and the station when it orbits directly overhead from the observer, and most of them do blink. And the Canadarm2 has lights on it so it can be remotely / CCTV operated also when the station is in the Earth's shadow, and they do have lights inside the station so astronauts / cosmonauts can see, and some of this light would be reflected towards the Earth when someone is in the Cupola pointing towards nadir and its protective shutters are open. There are a few positional lights on the visiting spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), also doubling as indicators that the visiting spacecraft docked to the station are powered and similar reasons.

Seeing iss from earth