Comments on: PV Solar Panel Quote for 100K House

By: Miss solar panel

Miss solar panel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:26:06 +0000

Yes, this is really expensive, didn’t you find another solution?

By: Good News for Renewable Energy Assistance in PA | 100khouse.com

Good News for Renewable Energy Assistance in PA | 100khouse.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:05:21 +0000

[...] two months ago I posted on a quote we received for a Solar PV system that would cost over $30K to install and still not cover 100% of our electricity demands in the [...]

By: Marino Petriccione

Marino Petriccione — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:02:49 +0000

You can purchase renewable energy credits to offset your house and make it zero energy. Also check out http://www.halcyonenvironmental.com for other energy saving technologies. There are other energy reduction solutions that should be done to the house before considering PV as the only source of energy. Secondly, you could add solar heat collectors on the side of the home. Renewable energy prices will decrease as production increases and as we keep upgrading the traditional pv panel.

By: Chad

Chad — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:51:37 +0000

So the current price of a PV setup is roughly $10,000/Kw? Any idea how this compares to the price last year? Or 5 years ago? It’s not directly analagous, but I remember when hard disk capacity cost about $1/mb, or $1000 for a gig (15 years ago?). Economies of scale and improved technology have pushed costs today to below $1 a gig.

What’s the likelihood of solar following a similar trend?

By: chad

chad — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:38:36 +0000

What Adam said…

This is more of an FYI post for me. I can’t devote a lot of time and research to the subject at this time as it is not remotely feasible for this project. Even if we had better pricing we would still be way out of the ballpark.

The humbling thing is that this size system would only be taking care of our appliances, lighting and ERV. We could create a home that required no active heating or cooling via passive techniques and still need a PV array this large to cover the remaining energy demand.

It seems that refrigerators would be the first appliance to improve. If anyone finds some type of a ground source heat pump powered fridge, let me know…

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:18:05 +0000

The PV system quotes that we have seen to date range from about $7-$10 per watt installed. These are slightly on the high end of that, but within the range.
Remember, it’s hard to build any house for $100k these days, so finding space in such a budget for a PV system is not really an option.
For those of you with larger budgets, consider the local rebates (as high as $5/watt in some states), the property tax exemption for the system, putting it in your mortgage (put 20% down) and getting the tax write-off on your mortage payments (which you can’t do with you normal utility bills) and having no utility bills.
When all is said and done the increase in your mortgage payment is probably close to the reduction in utility bills. This varies according to how you finance, local utilities rates, and incentives available in your state of course (www.dsireusa.org for more on those).

Solar usually makes the most sense after using passive tactics and reducing mechanical consumption. We all wish it was cheaper, but in the meantime it makes sense look at the details and see if it’s right for your situation. You can do this by looking at the total cost of ownership of your house, not just the construction cost.

By: Preston

Preston — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:29:05 +0000

How about a second quote?

By: chad

chad — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:06:48 +0000

indeed

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:01:19 +0000

Wow. That is depressing to say the least. I knew PV systems were expensive but I didn’t think they were THAT expensive.