Wait, panels are that cheap? Could you point me to a good place to buy them?
I don't know what, where, or how many you want, but these are by the pallet (~30ea) and about $6500. You can get much cheaper with used ones.
You get conservatively ~3hr of effective peak power per day (so a 400W panel will give you 1200Wh). You also need a DC converter for these to charge a battery or go to AC. Of course you'll want to mount them at the correct angle with a good view of the sun.
But used panels, at 80% rated output, are even cheaper, as low as $150. A few of those will fail, so you keep spares. They are often repairable in a few minutes if you are not afraid of a soldering iron, e.g. replace a diode or MOSFET.
Any roofer will put in mounting brackets, and almost any electrician is happy to put in the panel.
Be sure to specify if you need liftgate service at the destination or not, because that will affect cost, otherwise by default a pallet by LTL freight will need a loading dock to receive.
https://www.remodelingcosts.org/solar-panel-costs-increase-s...
That includes labor, mounting hardware, inverters and grid tie in. It also assumes high efficiency panels.
Watch out before buying older technology (lower efficiency) panels. Some have significant efficiency losses per degree Celsius increase in temperature.
$112/335W = $0.33 per watt. Installed, well under $1.
Which is why I was so fascinated by someone saying that you could get panels at 250USD/400W=0.625USD/W; I suppose it's possible that all the other stuff (electrician, mounting, inverters) is the difference, but a factor of 5? That feels like an chance to do something hacky and come out way ahead (like, say, DIYing a panel to run your computers, thus cutting out rewiring the house and needing an inverter).
One of the factors in cheaper solar is that the panels have gotten bigger. Panels grew from 250w to 300, 350, and now to 400w and 450w. The 450w panels are 82 inches by 42 inches, so taller than the average person. Larger panels require less mounting and less labor, so even if they cost more they might be slightly cheaper to install.
I think that utility scale solar will eventually beat residential solar on price because of less labor per watt to install. I sometimes think about a solar system that could be set on top of a house in a few hours and would contain the inverters and interlocks and be wired into a single breaker in the house electrical panel. A truck operator/installer and electrician could do two installs a day and the labor price would be significantly less. We are so far from this currently, with site surveys, permitting processes, individual panels in custom configurations and so on that result in several days of work spread out over months. I don't know if it could ever happen, but it is fun to think about at times.
Prices in the UK & Europe are lot lower per watt.
In Germany, around 2019/2020 depending on the size of the installation it was around 1€ to 1,30€ fully and professionally installed on your roof. Right now with the increasing demand and very bad availability we are back at about 1,50€ to 1,80€ per Watt.
