50 cents per Watt solar lamanate panels.

[FedUpWithIt All]

I already posted this in the energy forum but since it is such a fantastic deal and because a move toward sustainable energy is such a positive thing, i wanted to post it here for higher visibility.

SunElec is the online site where we bought our panels. We were very happy. They had a massive buy and are able to sell the laminates at an unheard of price and i thought i would share the news.


http://www.sunelec.com/

[notadmblnd]

1. I have very limited knowlege of this particular energy genre, so in laymens term;

how much would it cost to take a 1265 sq ft building off the grid?

[TheKentuckian]

5. Depends on the consumption of the building.

You have to know how much energy you are expecting to/do use, insulation of the building, surrounding climate, the efficiency of appliances and lights, and so on.

[roody]

6. Please don't take it off. Do a grid net tie. You sell when

you don't use it all, and you buy when there is no sun.

[FedUpWithIt All]

7. It depends more on your electrical use use than on building size.

The best thing to do would be to speak with an electrician, share with him/her you average KW consumption and show them the products and see what they have to say about designing a system.



There are also two types of systems. One is an off grid system which is a type of free standing system. This is what we are running. The extra components are typically cheaper but they work best with a massive reduction in consumption. The second type is called a Grid Tie system. These take a larger initial investment but allow you to use BOTH commercial power and solar which can really lower electric bills. If one makes enough power to cover their own use, and has extra left over, it can be SOLD BACK to the power companies if one is on a grid tie system.

[Schema Thing]

2. Thanks for sharing, Fedup

Have you come across anything like a calculator that helps to translate the "cents per Watt" cost of the solar panel into actual cost and or savings per year/month for electricity?

[FedUpWithIt All]

12. I haven't. We are completely off grid and had already reduced our consumption to a large degree

so we didn't look into savings because our purposes we for other reasons.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find something that breaks it down but honestly, at this price, it would not take long at all to pay for itself.

We're running 2 270W panels and, even in summer, we're getting enough power to run the computers, vacuum, the small LED tv and DVD...

When you run solar, you have to be conscience of loads so we don't run the TV when the computers AND the TV are on for example. These things are not an issue with a grid tie system though.

[sofa king]

36. Heh, I call that "Apollo 13-ing."

After the explosion and damage to the fuel cells, the crew of that mission faced the possibility of a total electrical shutdown and eventual death if they ever spiked above a certain power draw.

I've lived in many old houses with shoddy electrical systems that faced similar, though less life-threatening, problems. So I'd remind my house-mates of Opie's movie and say darkly, "if that happens to us, we risk... fire." (And in at least one case, where I later found a penny melted onto the contacts behind a blown screw-in fuse, I wasn't wrong.)

It was kind of weird, actually. Once they got that concept, they were suddenly much more receptive to the idea of using the gas stove instead of the toaster oven when the game was on, and so on. I think that for most people, electricity is more like magic than physics until they learn they have an incentive to understand and moderate its use.

[NYC_SKP]

3. K/R but a word of caution: laminate panels are not sturdy ready to use solar panels...

They are basically the panels without the frames, and thus prone to damage, or in need of frames in order to be used in a conventional manner.

It's still a great price, so K and R!

The same site has great prices on finished modules (panels) at just over a buck a watt: http://www.sunelec.com/solar-panels-c-5.html

And systems: http://www.sunelec.com/solar-panel-systems-c-1.html

Thank you for the post!

:toast:

[Snotcicles]

11. Check these out.

http://www.uni-solar.com/products/residential-products/powershingle-2/

[KittyWampus]

19. IMO, these are most promising of all. Houses need to be re-roofed periodically anyway.

[NYC_SKP]

21. They are very very pricey, this might change though. I love the look of them!

And the fact that they aren't additional material added to an existing roof, they ARE the roof.

:hi:

[FedUpWithIt All]

14. I had been pricing for years prior to buying...

and this site really has some of the best prices consistently.

You're welcome :D

[hobbit709]

4. too bad my budget would only get me about 100 watts.

[roody]

8. Some states have no-interest loans for lower incomes.

[hobbit709]

16. What good is a loan with inability to pay back?

If it wasn't for the fact that I have no house payment or car payment and my VA medical copays are only $56/mo, I'd be either homeless or dead by now.

[FedUpWithIt All]

18. We've been piecing ours as we go.

A 100 W panel on occasion could be a nice system before too long. :hi:

[mmonk]

9. Good on you.

I've been reading on how to build your own panels.

[FedUpWithIt All]

24. Thanks mmonk.

:hi:

It is a real kick to get your power from the sun.

[mmonk]

27. So much power just sitting there to be put to use.

:hi:

[NickB79]

10. How much is it when you include the mounting hardware, inverters, labor, etc?

The panels aren't what hurts the most; it's all the extras you need to connect your panels (and the qualified electrician usually hired to install it for you).

I'm running into this very problem. I've been pricing solar for my home, and no matter how I swing it I can't come up with the cash to make it work right now despite low panel prices. I'd be better off doing other upgrades I can do myself, like installing new windows and extra insulation, until I can save up more money.

[NYC_SKP]

15. There are so many different considerations. I just approved a 500kW system at $5/watt installed.

That's for a two acre solar shaded parking structure.

:P

For a home, without considering incentives and tax credits, for a grid-tied system:

Per watt costs:

$1.50 Installation labor
$2.50 Modules, cables, hardware
$1.00 Inverter (more likely to be $0.70/watt)

These are conservative, mostly worst case scenario prices, but expect the worst and hope for the best.

Thus, a 5kW (5000 watt) system might run $25,000 from a contractor. You might be able to DIY for $15,000.

But 5kW is more than many people need (it's a typical size for a home, however).

My house could run on a 1.5kW system, if I didn't have all these trees!

:hi:

[FedUpWithIt All]

22. In summer, on a clear day, we average a little over 2kW a day.

This is with two 275W panels that are running a about $350 a piece right now.

Now that it is winter we get, on a clear day, about 1.5kW a day. With the amount of power we use and a small back up generator for the poor days, this has been working very well for us. We're planning to add a 1 kW windmax turbine in the near future, once we save up the money, and then we should be pretty good on power.

[NYC_SKP]

25. What a BEAUTIFUL house!

I love that!

:hi:

[FedUpWithIt All]

28. Thank you!

It is actually our new chicken coop and shed. We start, hopefully, our straw bale house in the spring!! :)

[fascisthunter]

29. sweet looking home!

for chickens! LOL

I was wondering how a home could be so small, then I read your reply above...

[FedUpWithIt All]

33. That chicken coop and shed is actually the same size

as our temporary home that we've been living in for about a year. We've got 5 people in about 250 sq feet and it hasn't been too bad, surprisingly. We've been staying in this smaller space until we are able to put up our new home. :hippie: lol

[fascisthunter]

34. freaking awesome!!!! Where are you...

...I'm moving in! Some say I look like a chicken!

No really, the construction looks solid. I was thinking of getting a couple chickens, and building a coop for them, but I do live in the city, so it may be a little complicated.

[FedUpWithIt All]

17. We have spent a little over $2500 for our off grid system but...

my ex is an electrician and did the work for us and provided the boxes and much of the wire, we were given 7 12v 75Ah batteries which had been replaced, while in perfect condition, at a UPS job.

Our outback charge controller was about $500 and we bought a cheaper inverter for about $250.

The grid tie inverters are definitely more expensive but typically, that price is basically acceptable for some for the convenience of not having to lower consumption while still having easy power access and not having to maintain a battery bank. For ourselves, and our off grid system, reduction was very important.

Inverters and controllers can be found very reasonably on Amazon and Ebay. Batteries, which ARE NOT REQUIRED for the grid tie systems, are often removed from businesses because they like to upgrade frequently to ensure peak performance. These can be gotten for extremely cheap if one looks around. some people rehab old machinery batteries.

edited to add a picture of our components

[beac]

13. Bookmarked! Thanks for the link. n/t

[FedUpWithIt All]

20. Here is a good article about costs.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/solar-system-installation-cost-ze0z11zbon.aspx

[mmonk]

23. Copying and printing.

Thanks.

[Mango Suede]

26. Nice post

Interesting comments - I live in Maine with a 36 foot section of our L-shaped ranch house facing due south. I've been wanting to invest in solar for a while, but am ashamed to say i've not researched at all. With the long Maine winters, is solar power a wise investment?

[FedUpWithIt All]

31. It can be but there are a lot of variables and much of them have to do with personal preferences.

The best thing to do is find a local electrician, show him/her some of the products you're interested in and have him/her help you figure out a good system for your needs.

When i first started looking into solar it was extremely confusing but it didn't take long until i understood it well enough to purchase all of our needed components by myself (much cheaper way to put together a system although the site linked to here in this thread has some really nice package deals) but it did take me actually using a system to get a good handle on understanding usage and how our system would be able to fit that need.

[fascisthunter]

30. I am looking to do the same to my mother's house

thanks for the info!

[Fumesucker]

32. Broken solar cells are available from the manufacturers very cheaply..

Most broken cells still work fine, just at reduced power out capability directly proportional to their size.

There are videos on Youtube and instructions elsewhere for putting together panels from broken cells, it's not hard, just time consuming and the finished panels are not as pretty as ones made from perfect cells.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=broken+solar+cells&_sacat=See-All-Categories

[BlueToTheBone]

35. That is an incredible deal.

I'm trying to figure out how to just buy the panels. I could store them until I get the money for the rest. We have a fully electric house (built in the 80s) and we were told we should buy a 17k generator because we have a 765 foot deep well. Would we need 200 panels of the 220w ? I think we would need a generator for just the well back up and could use panels for the whole house.