Solar Panels For Home Use – Build Them or Buy Them?
When it comes to getting solar panels for home use, it’s fair to say that there are many choices. We could talk about Kyocera solar panels, GE panels or Evergreen solar. It’s my admonition that your main choice shouldn’t be between solar panel brands though; it should be whether or not you want to save money by building them yourself.
With the right instruction, anyone can build a solar panel, and building solar panels for your home will save you thousands over the cost of buying them. To clarify this, let’s compare buying solar panels to building them yourself.
Building Solar Panels for Home Use will Save You Money
Buy Solar Panels For Home Use
To begin with let’s talk about buying solar panels. In 2009, the average cost of solar panels did actually fall a bit, but it’s still not enough.
According to Science Daily, the average cost per watt for solar panels installed ranged between $7.60 and $10.60 (depending on where you live). So for a 100 Watt solar panel you should expect to pay $760 – $1060 per panel. Considering that just 3 years prior the same panel was $1200 +, this is a step in the right direction, but we can still install a solar power system for a lot less.
Build Solar Panels For Home Use
Now let’s talk about building solar panels. If you choose the DIY yourself method to install your solar panels for home use, you can go green while saving green!
The average cost of a homemade solar panel is $1.25 – $2.50 per watt. To put this into perspective, instead of paying $1060 per panel (on the high end) you can expect to pay $250 or less (also on the high end). That’s a savings of over $800 per panel.
In this case it isn’t the brand you choose that varies the cost, but the parts themselves. Solar cells will cost you about $0.95 per watt, and then you have some choices to put the rest of the panel together. You could build a cheap solar panel for $125 – $150. Or you could use higher end backer boards and covers and spend $250 per panel.
Now here’s the best part. Building a solar panel isn’t difficult at all. Starting with the right instruction, most people can build a complete solar panel in less than an hour. In other words by simply putting in an hour of time you save yourself $800. For each panel you build, you’ll repeat this.
Solar Panels For Home Compared – Building to Buying
It’s when we talk about an entire solar energy system for your home that the advantage to building solar panels for home really becomes clear. If you decided to convert your whole home to solar energy (you don’t have to do this by the way, you could just install a few panels to reduce your energy bill) you might need 12 panels, maybe 15, or even 20. In this case you’d have to calculate your own energy need.
Let’s just assume for a moment that you needed 12. If you purchased those panels at $1000 per piece, that’s 12 x $1000 = $12,000 you would be spending on the solar panels. If you chose to build those solar panels instead, even if we calculate this on the high-end, you would be paying $250 x 12 = $3000. In other words you saved $9,000.
As long as you use an ISO certified DC converter, that homemade solar energy system can still be tied into the grid, and as such it still qualifies for the government rebates on green power. So you can still reduce that $3,000 by an additional 40% – 60% (depends on your state).
To sum it up, you can build solar panels for home use and save money. In fact, with the right instructional material, anyone can do it. To get you started, I recommend the #1 DIY Solar Guide (Green Power Easy), or the #2 DIY Solar Guide (Earth 4 Energy).
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I believe that solar panels are an excellent way to provide clean, green and renewable energy to power a wide variety of devices. The power from solar panels is strong, reliable and easy to maintain. And on top of that it is also good for our environment. And if it is really true that building your own can save so much money it is definitely worth it!
Thanks for sharing those guides, I’ll have a look into it.
Cheers,
Roel