How much does residential Solar Power Cost?
The cost for residential solar energy generation varies greatly depending on several factors. Lets take a look at some of them.
1. How much electricity do you need, or want to make?
This should be the first question you ask yourself. Do you want to go 100% solar, or maybe you will want an integrated system that ties into the electrical grid to replace some of your electricity needs. The first step is to figure out how much electricity you need. This can be done by looking at your utility bill, the usage of electricity is represented by kWh or kilowatt-hour. 1 Kilowatt-hour is equal to 1000 watts of electricity used in one hour. Lets use my bill as an example. I will point out that your kWh will probably be different. Also there is a handy tool you can use for calculation that you can access here.
My total kWh for the month is 460. So lets divide that by 30 to get a daily representation which will equate to 15.3 kWh a day of electrical usage. Now to get the wattage we need per day from our Solar Panels we will multiply our daily kWh by 1000 which gives us 15300 watts of usage a day.
460 kWh x .3 = 15.3 kWh x 1000 watts = 15,000 watts
Now that we have the total watts of electricity we need to generate a day we can look at the next factor.
2. How much sunshine do you get at your location?
This is actually easier then it sounds NASA has created the NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy site which will be able to give you all the information you need for this next step.
For the solar panel estimator select the Insolation Average, Min and Max, and the Radiation on Equator-pointed Tilted Surface parameters. Note the yearly average figures you find for your location. Just a note Insolation means the number of hours in a day that a solar panel will produce its rated voltage. So my annual horizontal average is 3.72. Input into calculator.
3. You’ll also need to know what size, or wattage of panels you wish to use?
Keep in mind when picking out panels that you’ll want the same type and size. It has been noted that panels with different electrical characteristics do not complement very well. There are many types and sizes what you want is really up to you. So just for this example I’ll go with a 175 watt solar panel. Note that a higher wattage does not mean the solar panel is of better quality. Input this into the calculator.
4. Now you will have to adjust for inefficiencies in your system. What I mean by this is that when we talk about energy coming through a system, we mean that energy courses through different devices in a chain I.E. charge controller, inverter, batteries. Every step of the way loses us energy, so we want to only put things in the chain that are absolutely necessary and are in good working order. There will always be some loss to the output level. It’s just the way it goes. The only thing we can really do about it is to make sure are system is as efficient as possible. A good example of this is the picture at the top of this post. If you are thinking about buying a manufactured system this information should be available from them, otherwise figure between 50% – 70% efficiency. I’ll average for example and use an efficiency of 60%.
5. You may have noticed when you looked at the NASA site that insolation values can go up drastically for tilted panels, or positioning panels to face towards the sun. Because of this your annual average of Insolation can almost triple so lets go back and get a different figure. So lets use a tilt of 45 degrees, which brings our Insolation from 3.72 to 4.31.
So if we went for horizontal positioned panels I would need 39 panels at 175 watts each.
If we went with the 45 degree angle we would need 34 panels at 175 watts each.
Now you can shop around for better prices but the 175 watt panels I am using for this example are $672.00 each.
Horizontal : 39 x 672 = $26,208 US.
45 Degree angle : 34 x 672 = $22,848 US
I realize this seems like a large up front investment however you are adding value to your house, also making it up with non existent energy bills, selling energy back back to the utility company’s, and last but definitely not least getting tax breaks and other incentives from the government. While buying manufactured panels and having them installed may be the easiest way to get solar energy coursing through your wires, it is also by far the most expensive Solar power Cost.
Luckily there are extremely easy ways to lower Solar Power Cost, and also have some fun by making solar panels yourself. Doing it this way can drastically lower the amount of money you’ll spend on your initial investment. I highly recommend trying it out, just be careful when purchasing a kit, they are not all created equal. If you would like more information please visit Solar Power Cost to check out a kit I have personally hand picked and know works great.
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Recommended reading material:
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