Insights Into Solar Power Costs

There are 2 main factors that govern solar power cost and these are quite simply, the assembly cost of the solar power panels and the installation cost of the solar system in your home.

Solar power panels may be green, eco-friendly and help to save the planet but until they can be competitive in the energy market place then they will never be extensively used. A new coal-burning plant can easily deliver electricity at $2 per watt and so this is the benchmark figure that the solar scientists want to match.

For the past 20 years scientists have been developing innovative and cheaper designs of solar power panels. It is the Silicone based solar photovoltaic panels that have dominated the industry and sell for about $3 a watt, but this is before installation.

For some time there was an actual scarcity of silicone and although the demand for solar panels was growing, the solar panel suppliers were not able to meet that demand. Today even though there is a plentiful supply of silicone, nevertheless the operation of refining it to make the semiconductors is a costly process and there are not too many companies that do this. The handful of factories that are able to produce this refined silicone have a monopoly on the supply which means that even though the demand is high they still keep the price inflated.

The price of refined silicone is one of the main elements in the cost of solar panels. The key thrust of research taking place today is in developing ways to reduce the amount of silicone that is needed to produce a solar panel. There is also investigation taking place in using alternative cheaper materials which are equally effective. There are certain organic materials which have semiconductor properties which may be used instead of silicone.

The expense of installation will change quite dramatically depending on whether you do it yourself or if you call in an experienced installer. To install a solar power system in your home using a professional installer will cost you between $10 - $12 per watt. If you install the system by yourself then it should probably cost you about $4 per watt.

While the initial expense of installation of a home solar energy system would still be fairly expensive there is no doubt that in the near future, given the amazing advancements that are happening, the cost will come down. In the mean time, government authorities all over the world are encouraging and subsidizing the use of this technology by offering tax rebates and incentives for home owners who install solar energy systems.

So if you install your solar energy system by yourself at the cost of about $4 per watt and claim all the tax rebates and credits that are offered in your area, then your solar power cost may not be so far from the $2 per watt benchmark of the electricity delivered by the coal-burning plant.

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