NEW! SOLAR POWER CALCULATORHow much would it cost to set up solar panels to provide energy for your whole house?
June 25th, 2009
I need to know how expensive solar panels are and how much to install. I know that you can't just put up solar panels and expect them to power your whole house. You have to convert the sunlight and store it in a battery bank. How expensive is that? How much does it cost for everything?
If you go to a professional solar power company and tell them you want enough solar panels to power your whole house, it will cost you between $20,000 and $50,000. There are some state programs that might subsidize this cost and there are also Federal income tax incentives.
Now if that's too much money for you, then you should consider building your own solar panel system. Basically it's a piece meal approach where you gradually build more and more solar panels and take more and more appliances in your home off the electricity grid until finally your whole house is solar power.
For a home of about 1,500 to 2,000 square feet, you would probably need about 300 to 400 square feet of panels. You would be generating electricity only in the daylight hours. That energy goes to your battery bank. The panels should be directed close to perpendicular to capture the sun's rays at noon. The optimum would be to follow the sun through its arc. The energy is changed with an inverter to A/C power and connected to the main electric grid, sold back to the power company when you are producing excess, you would draw back from the grid when you are needing more than you are producing.
For detailed plans on how to do this go to how to build your own solar power system to power your whole house.
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June 26th, 2009 at 7:02 am
To power your whole house with solar panels, it depends on how much energy you use, how much sun you get, and how much electricity costs.
Our house is in California, in a very good location for solar. Our 3 kW array cost $12,000 after state rebates. Today, that money buys a 4 kW array, according to a neighbor of mine who just got his installed 2 weeks ago. But I think he got a fantastic deal that’s unlikely to be repeated until a year or two when panel prices go down. Our array generates more energy than the house uses, so actually, I made a mistake in sizing.
Be careful of companies that have the business model of you putting down a deposit, then promising to install the array later. That model may work in the future, but for today, it’s vaporware.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I made my own solar panels for under $300. You can learn how to do it yourself with instruction manuals as well.
http://www.mysolarsecret.com
Teaches you everything for natural energy installation.