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I'm always surprised about the price of solar panels in the US, I think we paid about €1.2/W. It's not like labor is cheap in Belgium.

rhn_mk1 4y ago
Surely you mean 1.2 Eur/W?
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  Yes, fixed.
r00fus 4y ago
Is that the subsidized (ie, including tax rebates) price, or the raw cost?
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  There are no tax rebates here, cost including tax and labor.
mnw21cam 4y ago
It varies. A lot of solar installers will push the benefits of microinverters or optimisers, because they can make your system cope better with partial shading or panel failure. However, the microinverters or optimisers are expensive, and can easily double the cost of the system. They also have dubious merit, because if you design your system properly in the first place it will cope with partial shading and panel failure quite happily anyway. However, selling the units makes sense for the installer, because it's more money that passes through their hands. Remember, the installers are not necessarily working for your best interests. You can buy panels off Amazon at about £0.73/W. Add in the various bits that you need to go along with it, and that probably pushes it up to around £1.10/W, if you're doing it yourself.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  Hmm, my parents also looked into micro inverters and while they were more expensive it still was far from this price.
kube-system 4y ago
The US also bans a lot of Chinese solar panels, which are the cheapest on the market.
koyote 4y ago
Australia is even cheaper, I paid around USD 0.6/W for my system (including subsidies, it's closer to USD 1.0/W excluding subsidies). Break-even will be in around 3-4 years. I noticed (by following the solar sub-reddit) that almost every single US install has either Enphase or Solaredge inverters (which happen to be on the pricier side). I am not sure if that's an indication for the lack of competition but surely this seems like an industry where disruption is possible?

rhn_mk1 4y ago

Surely you mean 1.2 Eur/W?

CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
Yes, fixed.

r00fus 4y ago

Is that the subsidized (ie, including tax rebates) price, or the raw cost?

CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
There are no tax rebates here, cost including tax and labor.

mnw21cam 4y ago

It varies. A lot of solar installers will push the benefits of microinverters or optimisers, because they can make your system cope better with partial shading or panel failure. However, the microinverters or optimisers are expensive, and can easily double the cost of the system. They also have dubious merit, because if you design your system properly in the first place it will cope with partial shading and panel failure quite happily anyway. However, selling the units makes sense for the installer, because it's more money that passes through their hands. Remember, the installers are not necessarily working for your best interests. You can buy panels off Amazon at about £0.73/W. Add in the various bits that you need to go along with it, and that probably pushes it up to around £1.10/W, if you're doing it yourself.

CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
Hmm, my parents also looked into micro inverters and while they were more expensive it still was far from this price.

kube-system 4y ago

The US also bans a lot of Chinese solar panels, which are the cheapest on the market.

koyote 4y ago

Australia is even cheaper, I paid around USD 0.6/W for my system (including subsidies, it's closer to USD 1.0/W excluding subsidies). Break-even will be in around 3-4 years. I noticed (by following the solar sub-reddit) that almost every single US install has either Enphase or Solaredge inverters (which happen to be on the pricier side). I am not sure if that's an indication for the lack of competition but surely this seems like an industry where disruption is possible?