You have probably wondered at one point about the cost of solar panels. With all this talk about a bad economy, running out of oil, and pollution, the issue of cheap, renewable power is a big one. You may have heard that solar panels are quite expensive initially. A huge amount of special engineering and expensive materials go into the manufacturing of each solar panel. This means, to the layman, higher solar panel prices. This has been true for decades and even more so with the recent interest in solar energy. It’s important that you know where you stand in regards to how much you will pay to change over to a solar panel system.
It’s a fact that solar electricity has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream society. This really means that a lot of the technologies have not been optimized. There is a mad rush to optimize the technologies, but it will take a few more years of research and development before we see tangible results.
This mean right now that there are only a handful of smaller companies active in the solar panel market. Since there is not a lot of competition, the prices stay high.
So how much do solar panels cost, really? You can estimate that a single solar panel that produces about 4.5 amperes of current costs equivalent of about three dollars. A complete harnessing setup which includes the regulators, brackets, wiring, and meters adds on a few hundred dollars more. So, a one-panel solar system will probably cost you about 500 bucks. This is a fair chunk of money – and this is what’s causing consumers to hesitate about taking the leap into solar power.
However, there are some recent solar technologies that have brought down the price for some do it yourself solar panel systems. For a reasonable price of less than 200 bucks, you can use photovoltaic cells to create a standalone power system.
So really, how much do solar panels really end up costing? It really depends on whether you are going to just buy them or go the do it yourself route. Commercial solar panel setups will be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars for small setups. If you make the move to power your entire home with solar panels, you can easily spend between 30k to 50k as a rough estimate. However, there is a lot of new research that will bring the price down in the future. If you go the do it yourself homemade version, you can get away with only spending about 2k to power your household.