Homemade Solar Panels

thomaswarner

disclaimer and caution.
be aware that you don't have to do the survey, either partly or in whole, or disclose any private or personal information and in doing so it is at your own risk.
niel


Please take this survey about solar panels.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SJ8SPHF
Thank you!

niel

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

why would you need my phone number or email address?
i guess you are aware of the extra areas to the right for checking that aren't needed and i just looked at the first column as necessary.
you might initially confuse somebody with running the 2 words together and those 2 words were power and on.

thomaswarner

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

niel wrote: »

why would you need my phone number or email address?
i guess you are aware of the extra areas to the right for checking that aren't needed and i just looked at the first column as necessary.
you might initially confuse somebody with running the 2 words together and those 2 words were power and on.

Thank you. I fixed the problems.

AntronX

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

thomaswarner wrote: »

Please take this survey about solar panels.

Don't just jump in here asking us to take survey without stating your intentions. I have a feeling that this new "take a survey" trend is a new way of advertising on the internet. I would just ban these survey requests and be done with it.

niel

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

until a bad deed is done it'll stand. you are within your rights to ask questions of the pollster such as to his intentions just as i have done for i see no need of my email address or phone number to be given to him and i asked him why he asked for them. no answer as of yet.

thomaswarner

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

niel wrote: »

until a bad deed is done it'll stand. you are within your rights to ask questions of the pollster such as to his intentions just as i have done for i see no need of my email address or phone number to be given to him and i asked him why he asked for them. no answer as of yet.

Oh sorry I just forgot to uncheck those boxes.

Solar Guppy

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

And your 4 question survey still has Question #1 for all the personal info

thomaswarner

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

Solar Guppy wrote: »

And your 4 question survey still has Question #1 for all the personal info

Yes but only a few things are actually required

BB.

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

TW,

This is starting to feel like a Turing Test...

1) Please stop quoting our entire posts--We remember what we posted.
2) Please explain your goals/requirements/etc...

So far, you have pretty much avoided much in the way of useful discussion points.

Your questions/statements are really not going anywhere.

-Bill

thomaswarner

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

Sorry, I didn't want to seem mean, pointless, or trying to spam. I have a lot to learn about forums, I'm a newbie!;) I guess I wanted to either make money or at least save money making solar panels.

P.S. Its a good thing you didn't have long posts, you should see my other thread! Oooops

BB.

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

Not many of us here have made our own panels--a few people have--but not too much in the way of detailed information posted here. I try not to be too negative sounding (we have had that complaint before) but trying to set expectations (how much power, how much cost, how reliable, how safe, etc.) does get pretty negative sounding at times.

If you want a good starting point--take a look through this thread:

Working Thread for Solar Beginner Post/FAQ

It has lots of information and links to other references for a wide variety of DIY and other projects.

Very simply, with commercial panels and hardware, professionally installed, you can produce power (Net Meter Utility Billing) that will be just about at the same price as utility power. (probably in the range of $0.15 to $0.30 per kWH depending on a whole bunch of factors).

If you live in areas like California or the North East US--Where we have punishing utility rates for "heavy power users"--You can actually "make power" for less than it costs to purchase (our top Time of Use/Seasonal Rates are in the $0.40 to $0.60 per kWH range for residential and commercial).

If you live in areas where they only pay you for the wholesale rate for electric power ($0.06 or so per kWH)--You will have a difficult time breaking even.

And don't even think of going Off-Grid with your power to "spite" utility--Off-Grid power costs around $1-$2+ per kWHr... The extra panels (less efficient for off-grid), more hardware (charge controllers and batteries), higher maintenance costs (new batteries every 3-8+ years, new inverters/chargers every 10-15 years), and backup power costs (genset and fuel)...

Off Grid power will only make sense when you are around a mile or more from the utility feed, and you use around 100 kWH per month or so...

For an off-grid system, the cost of the solar panels ($2-$3 per Watt, or even less) is probably 1/3rd or 1/6th the total system cost. And since commercial panels should last 25-40+ years--their maintenance costs are near zero.

For a grid tied system with panels in the $2-$3 per watt range, it is about 1/2, or less, of the cost of an entire commercially installed system cost.

In the end, if you think big business is getting rich off of Solar PV power--Not too many are doing that well financially, or where purchased for green washing (by oil companies and such), or are making money (for now) from government subsidies and "investments".

Just in the last decade, the price of panels has fallen from $10 a watt to (on sale) $1 per watt... If there was a conspiracy to keep prices high--they are not doing a very good job of it. (prices are being keep artificially high by government rebates and kickbacks around the world--when a government, such as Germany, drops some of the $$$--then the world price of panels falls-again).

-Bill

moorsb

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

I have been working on build my own. I finally broke down and bought some discontinued GE panels at $1.83 per watt. What caused this was I had purchased 20 T105s off of craigslist. I purchased a 75 amp IQ4 to keep them charged while I built the solar panels. I spent many hours soldering cell togather and I was ready to laminate them to glass. I was carrying a tray full of cells ready to mount and I tripped and smashed all of them. months of work gone in 5 seconds.

Cariboocoot

Re: Homemade Solar Panels

In fairness, you can break commercial panels in the same way. Then you're out $$$.

The real problem with home-made is that you can not possibly make them good enough (sealed) to withstand the operating conditions panels are subjected to. It's a learning experience.:roll: