If my school was to purchase enough solar panels to run the school off only their power, how much might that cost? (I have a really small school, only 384 kids.)
Just general prices of solar panels and how much electricity they yield would be fine too.
Solar panels typically cost in the range of 8 to 10 dollars per kilowatt of power they are capable of providing. That same kilowatt of power costs in the range of 8 to 10 cents normally.
This is the reason solar is not all that viable, without government incentives.
The person who responded "You're looking at $10,000 to $40,000…" is so far off the real answer as to not even be funny. I suspect a solar pv system for a school would start in the $400,000 to $500,000 range. Many areas though have incentives, which will reduce the actual out of pocket costs (but not to $10k).
5 responses to How much do solar panels cost?
don’t do it. solar is a joke.
References :
Solar panels typically cost in the range of 8 to 10 dollars per kilowatt of power they are capable of providing. That same kilowatt of power costs in the range of 8 to 10 cents normally.
This is the reason solar is not all that viable, without government incentives.
The person who responded "You're looking at $10,000 to $40,000…" is so far off the real answer as to not even be funny. I suspect a solar pv system for a school would start in the $400,000 to $500,000 range. Many areas though have incentives, which will reduce the actual out of pocket costs (but not to $10k).
References :
http://www.americanpv.com/pdf/res_on/prices.pdf
Bravo… we run both our ranch in California and our farm in the Philippines on a combination of solar and wind. BUT, we also use only 12 volt lighting, and our 120V appliances are limited to the fridge, computers, shop tools, and TV.
You’re looking at $10,000 to $40,000 to buy and install a system that would actually take your school “off the grid”. It’s not just the panels, you need inverters, charge-controllers, and battery back-up.
Here is a nice link that will help you to calculate your requirements: http://www.solardyne.com/solarinfo.html
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I have a coworker that did her home with a 5 kw system with batteries and whole house inverter. It cost $55k before the Florida $20k rebate.
She sells back to the grid, but the system will not pay for itself for at least 20 years.
It will not run the air conditioning, either. The batteries will give 3 days power for everything else without sun.
There are companies trying to lease solar equipment, but none seem ready for prime time, yet.
I’ve been to Sun-Electric (Venetian Causeway across from the Herald building) in Miami to buy surplus panels. They have a whole roof of panels and sell back to the grid, but they also have a room with batteries and an inverter and close shop at night.
References :
http://www.sunelec.com/
Go with Stephen’s answer. It typically costs $20-40K for powering a home so I would go with $100K’s. If that was a plan for your school, look into wind power. Your school would most likely have to place it outside of town but its all the same in the end.
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