If you wonder what’s the actual cost of a homemade solar panel, keep reading! The cost of commercial solar panels have an average return of the investment of ten years. So in about five to ten years you should be able to recover your initial investment due to lower electricity bills.

This figure will vary greatly depending on:

• The quantity of power you consume
• The location of the solar electric panels on your roof
• The amount of sun exposure you have

Also different states around the country offer different incentive programs and rebates for the purchase and installation of solar panels. You may call your local building department to inquiry about their programs. It may well save you thousands of dollars.

The amount of solar panels you may need is actually not depending on the size of the building (as it may seem at first) but on the electricity you consume. Therefore the first step would be to get your last electricity bills (up to a year to have a better calculation), add the total kilowatt hours from the utility bills (kWh) and divide it by 1930.

This formula will give you a quite approximate size in kilowatts of the photovoltaic panels you will actually need. Commercial systems cost from %5,000 to $9,000 per kilowatt installed (before any rebate)

For example: if your utility bill tells you are using 12,500 kWh per year and your cost is $1,800/year:

12,500 / 1,930 = 6.47 kW. That means you will need a system able to generate 6.47kW

And that system would cost you: 6.47 kW * $7,000/kW = $45,290 (taking an average installation value of $7,000)

With a 30% rebate your bill would be reduced by $13,588 and you would have to come with $31,703 (out of pocket). If you then factor tax credits you would have to end up paying around $16,000

And since your yearly cost is $1,800 you will have paid for your installation in ($16,000 / $1,800 = 8.8 years)

You should take also into account the physical space needed to install the system:

To generate 1kW you may need a bit less than 100 square feet of solar panels, So for 6.47kW you may need around 600 square feet of roof space. But if you can’t afford a commercial solar electric panel installation you may look to other valuable alternatives like DIY photovoltaic panels.

There are plenty of books and eBooks around that can help you in this task. Just take the time to analyze your best option and go for it!