There are 2 important factors which govern solar power cost and these are quite simply, the production cost of the solar power panels and the installment cost of the solar system in your home.
Solar panels may well be green, eco-friendly and also help save the planet but unless they can be competitive in the energy marketplace then they will never be widely used. A new coal-burning plant can deliver electricity at $2 per watt and making this the benchmark number that the solar scientists are trying to match.
For the past twenty years scientists have been developing innovative and cheaper designs of solar panels. It is the Silicone based photovoltaic panels that have dominated the industry and they sell for approximately $3 a watt, but this is before installation.
For a while there was an actual shortage of silicone and although the demand for solar panels was increasing, the solar panel producers were not able to meet that demand. Now although there is a plentiful supply of silicone, still the operation of refining it to produce the semiconductors is a costly process and there are not too many facilities that do this. The few factories that are able to manufacture this refined silicone have a monopoly on the supplies which means that while the demand is high they still keep the price inflated.
The actual price of refined silicone is one of the main factors in the cost of solar panels. The main thrust of research taking place today is in improving ways to lower the amount of silicone that is required to produce a solar panel. There is also investigation taking place with alternative cheaper materials that are equally efficient. There are certain organic materials that have semiconductor properties which can be used instead of silicone.
The cost of installation will change quite considerably depending on whether you do it yourself or if you call in a professional installer. To install a solar powered system in your home using a specialist installer can cost you between $10 - $12 per watt. If you install the system yourself then it should most likely cost you about $4 per watt.
While the initial cost of installation of a home solar power system would still be fairly expensive it is inevitable that soon, given the amazing developments that are happening, the price will come down. In the mean time, governments around the world are encouraging and subsidizing the use of this technology by giving tax savings and incentives for homeowners who install solar energy systems.
Therefore if you install your solar power system yourself at the cost of about $4 per watt and then claim all of the tax rebates and incentives that are offered in the area, then your solar power cost may not be so far from the $2 per watt benchmark of the energy delivered by the coal-burning plant.
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