What is the price per watt retail fro solar panels.  I am interested in a DIY project of about 3 KW.

http://sunelec.com/

I second that, I have been buying stuff for years and Sun Electronics is hard if not impossible to beat. I just bought another 4 panels from them, 4 purchases from them in as many years and never had an issue.

I just posted in another thread a comment on what retail pricing is these days.

Summary of the example:

Kyocera, 205 watt panels, 16% efficient, Grade 'A,' U.L. Listed, 80/20/1 warranty, immediate availability, U.S. firm for warranty & customer service needs.

$3.1/watt, plus $0.1/w for shipping, in quantities of 20 or more.

See http://www.affordable-solar.com/ for details.

Best regards,

Bill

Just for reference Sun Electronics has the Evergreen panels for $2.58 a watt made in the US with a 5 year workmanship and 25 year power warranty.

Could somebody explain what is meant by "$2.58 a watt" ? I understand a 100 watt panel would then cost 258 dollars, but is that referring to a panel that produces 100 watts a day, 100 watts a week, 100 watts a month, 100 watts continually?

100 watts on an instantaneous basis.

KWH is the measurement used to illustrate consumption of power over time.

Best regards,

Bill

Thanks Bill, so if I wanted to power for example three 100 watt bulbs and use one 1500 watt hair dryer then I would need eighteen 100 watt solar panels and they would cover that load indefinitely?

You'll get some power loss when you take the DC from the panels and put it through the inverter, as well as some voltage drop depending on the distance of the panels to the inverter. The output varies as the sun angle changes throughout the day, maximum output is from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm (more or less).  Also the panels slowly lose a little efficiency over time.

I can tell you at 45* north (Green Bay, WI) I get just over their panels rating times 11 for the year in KWH's. In our case, our old set of panels were rated at 1000w and over a year’s time they produced just over 1100kwh. On a good sunny day in June (when the sun is further north and the panels are cool) I saw a max of just over 7000wh (7kwh) produced in one day with a max of about 900w at solar noon. On the flip side in December the max I saw on one day was 3900wh and some days in winter during a snow storm the system might produce nothing at all.
 
So as you go further south it should get better, basically in the US you run from about 3 sun hours a day in the far north east to about 7 sun hours a day in the far south west. Then if you take the sun hours times your panel rating that is what on average you will produce in a day over the year, usually more in summer and less in winter. It also depends on if your panels track the sun on one or two axis or just tilted and at what angle.

Here is a solar map from Wind & Sun.

Oh and as Rio said this is just the DC side of the system. You get about a 90% of that in a pure grid tie setup and about 70% of that in a battery based system and somewhere in between in a hybrid (grid tie but with batteries) system.

There is an interesting article in today's International Herald Tribune that indicates the price of solar cells will drop due to oversupply for the near term.  The world wide economic downturn and pull back of government subsidies has greatly reduced demand and production has been ramping up.  They anticipate prices will remain depressed through 2010 and likely 11.

I couldn't quickly find a link to the article (the NYT has changed the website), but will look again when I have more time later today.

Bruce

can anyone reference me for solar installation in NJ?

Hi,

I can offer you the price,which is USD1.9/wtt. but the Basic order is 10KW.

All the solar panels is with UL.

King regards!

Gary trade588(at)gmail.com

The power is from 160watt to 250watt.

Solar panels that cost less than $1 per watt to produce are on their way, as Colorado State University's new method for low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels looks set to begin mass production.

The sub $1 a watt panels are here. Sun elec has the thin film solar panels for $.98 a watt. Keep in mind the thin film panels are not as robust as either mono or multi crystalline, at least not yet. Once they figure that out they will be set.

On that same site they have multi crystalline panels for $1.74 a watt for non-ul (not certified for use in grid tie) and UL listed for $2.24. Again I have nothing to do with this company, but have purchased from them in the past with no problems.