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Solar Power Costs - What Everyone Will Need To Know
There are two main factors that govern solar power cost and they are quite simply, the production cost of the solar panels and the installation cost of the solar system in your home.
Solar power panels may well be efficient, eco-friendly and help to save our planet but unless they can compete in the energy market place then they will never be extensively used. A new coal-burning plant can deliver electrical power at $2 per watt and so this is the benchmark figure that the solar experts are trying to match.
For the last 20 years scientists have been developing innovative and cheaper designs of solar power panels. It is the Silicone based photovoltaic panels which have dominated the industry and sell for about $3 a watt, however this is before installation.
For a while there was a real scarcity of silicone and although the demand for solar panels was growing, the solar panel producers were not able to fulfill that demand. Today even though there is an ample supply of silicone, still the process of refining it to make the semiconductors is a costly process and there are not too many companies that do this. The few factories that can produce this refined silicone have a monopoly on the supply meaning that while the demand is high they can keep the price inflated.
The price of refined silicone is one of the main elements in the cost of solar panels. The main thrust of research going on today is in developing ways to reduce the quantity of silicone that is required to produce a solar panel. There is also research taking place in using alternative cheaper materials which are equally efficient. There are specific organic materials which have semiconductor properties which may be used rather than silicone.
The cost of installation will vary quite dramatically depending on whether you do it yourself or if you call in an experienced installer. To install a solar powered system in your own home using a professional installer will cost you between $10 - $12 per watt. If you install the solar system yourself then it will probably cost you about $4 per watt.
While the initial expense of installation of a home solar power system would still be relatively expensive there is no doubt that in the near future, given the astounding developments that are taking place, the cost will come down. In the mean time, government authorities around the world are encouraging and subsidizing the use of this particular technology by offering tax rebates and credits for homeowners who install solar power systems.
So if you install your solar energy system yourself at the cost of approximately $4 per watt and claim all the tax savings and incentives that are available in your area, then your solar power cost may not be so far from the $2 per watt benchmark of the electricity delivered by the coal-burning plant.
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