You are considering a conversion to solar electricity in your home. Immediately you wonder “How much is this going to cost?” Then when you get the answer, you wish you hadn’t. Sticker shock is a reality with solar energy systems and for good reason. Home solar energy systems are extremely expensive, and frankly beyond the budget of most home owners.
Making your own solar and wind power for less than $200
Let’s start with three basic pricing concepts. These are fairly consistent across all installations. First, the panel expense makes up around half the cost, so the more panels you need the more it is going to cost you. Next, the number of panels you need is a function of their efficiency (i.e. amount of power they can produce per square inch), and the location (i.e. how many hours of direct sunlight the panels will receive during the average day). Finally, the amount of power you need to generate will also play a large roll in determining the number of panels required. Obviously, all other factors being equal, a system that must produce 500 KWHs per month should cost about half as much as one that needs to produce 1000 KWHs per month.
Together, these 3 factors will help you to determine how many watts your system must be capable of producing, and you can figure on about $9.00 per watt. So how many watts do you need? A little bit of easy arithmetic is required to answer this question. Follow these steps.
1) Get the total kilowatt hours on your monthly electric bill and divide by 30 to get the daily kilowatts.
2) Estimate the total hours of direct sunlight your location receives each day – just come up with an average figure because you’ll usually get more sunlight in the summer and less in the winter.
3) Divide your daily kilowatts by the number of direct sunlight hours to determine how much energy you must collect while the sun shines.
4) Multiple the result by 1,2 to slightly over-size the system and account for fluctuations in available sunlight.
5) Multiple the result by 1,000 which converts the kilowatts back to watts.
6) Multiply that number by 9 to get the approximate cost.
Making your own solar and wind power for less than $200
Here is an example:
1) 1,000 KWH per month, divided by 30, is 33.33 KWHs per day.
2) Times 5 hours of direct sunlight per day is 6.66 hourly kilowatts day
3) Times 1.2 is 7.99 Kilowatts needed during each peak sunshine hour.
4) Times 1000 is 7,990 watts
5) Time 9 comes to $72,000
You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Of course, you can adjust the final number by any percentage if you want to consider a partial system and the cost estimate should still be close. :
Now remember, there are tax credits available to help offset the cost and at the time of this article, I believe the federal credit is 30%, at which point the net cost becomes about $50,000. . Most states have rebate systems as well. You can find out about those here.
There could be other expenses as well, like battery backup systems and tie in equipment. First, extra energy can be stored in batteries for use when needed.
Did you know that many people now build and install their own solar panels and system for a fraction of the usual cost? People everywhere are constructing their own solar power systems with panels they build for under $200 each.
Are you interested in learning more about solar panel prices, and how to install DIY solar at a fraction of the cost?
Stop paying hundreds every month to the the power company. Anyone can reduce or eliminate their monthly electric bill using affordable, homemade solar power without breaking the bank. More and more people are moving to DIY solar power each day. Avoid high solar panel prices here.
Making your own solar and wind power for less than $200
 | US $4,524.00 End Date: Wednesday Feb-15-2012 13:33:42 PST Buy It Now for only: US $4,524.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
 | US $500.00 End Date: Sunday Feb-19-2012 19:20:30 PST Buy It Now for only: US $500.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list |