I was just thinking about starting this thread! to funny.

 

I'm in the research phase of switching over to solar power, let me say what I've found is the cost are high but with some hard work you can significantly lower the cost. For example DO NOT buy your equipment from the guy that just left you a note on the door, he's going to sell it at retail, you want to pay wholesale.

 

First figure out what you want solar for, are you trying to go 100% off the grid (my preference but also the most expensive), you can also do a 100% solar grid tie-in where you are selling energy back to the power company, then there's specific systems for an attic fan, hot water heater, well pump and so on.....

 

once you know how much you want to use from what I'm finding you take the potential (advertised) amount of wattage a panel has and multiply by the peak sun time and then multiply that by .85 for loss of energy when transferring from DC to AC. On Amazon you'll find 250 Watt panels for about $350 so that one panel in Florida where the peak sun light is 4 hour (4 * 250 * .85 = 850 watts per day) from there you can figure out how many panels you'd need for what system you want. Keep in mind you need to price invertors, batter backup system grid tie ins, cables and so on.

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