i need the total price plus details like watts and stuff. this is in michigan
There are several websites that have solar power calculators that will give an estimate of the size and cost of system you need. www.findsolar.com is one that comes to mind. Just do a search for solar power estimate or solar calculator.
How much would it cost to run a house on solar power?
Posted on February 10th, 2010 in solar power residential
8 responses to How much would it cost to run a house on solar power?
$25,000 – 100,000 dollars (or more if huge home):
http://www.costhelper.com/cost/home-garden/solar-panels.html
The solar technology is still less efficient than desired.
Have you looked into wind energy – depending on your home location and size of property (zoning etc..)
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf
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GO GREEN : )
All you have to do is look up solar suppliers online. All the parts are readily available.
There isn’t one "total price" answer. Solar systems have several different flavors depending on what you want to do. A solar system can provide power only during the day, or it can have batteries. A solar system can be stand-alone or it can tie in to the utility company’s service (called a "grid tie" system).
A rule of thumb is that a solar system takes between 20 and 30 years to pay for itself.
References :
There are several websites that have solar power calculators that will give an estimate of the size and cost of system you need. www.findsolar.com is one that comes to mind. Just do a search for solar power estimate or solar calculator.
References :
depends on installation and energy needs.
are you on the grid or off the grid?
on the grid you can skip the batteries and inverter, charge controller.
for a 10kW system its around $30,000 at cheapest.
off the grid then it depends on you. obviously you have a energy efficient house, so at most 8kW energy needs. how much battery capacity and what kind of battery do you want?
If I was to do this (and I would love to do this)
I would have a 12kWsystem at my off the grid home, it would be around $25,000 because its off the grid and I can’t exactly drive to home depot if one broke.
A battery bunker will hold about 160kW charge, or enough for 5 days. Batteries are $5,000 each, I’ll need 8 of them at the least. A bunker is used so that the toxic or dangerous gases given off the batteries is not a hazard to me.
A battery inverter and charge controller, 2x5kW inverters at 48volts each will run around $2000. Charge controller a good one would be like $1200.
complete system perfect for a prepper like me would be around $70,000 bucks minimum. 12kW solar, 160kW storage, 10kWinverter panel. 15-20 years battery life, enough electricity for at least 10 days without a recharge.
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Would it be more conducive and practical to run solar in conjunction with wind? Would you see a faster return that way?
It cost me roughly $22k for a 1 kW wind turbine, 1.5 kW of solar, the charge controllers, batteries, alternator, wire, breakers, connections, etc., and the shed to house them in. This is sufficient to power my 3200 sqft house in central PA which was designed from scratch to be super-efficient. Average daily usage is 6 kWh.
That should have been “inverter”, not “alternator”. You only need one since there shouldn’t be any 240V loads in your off-grid house. Also, there’s no point in ever planning for 10 days of battery storage. That would be insanely expensive. Plan for 2-3 days worth, and on the one or two days per year you need more, fire up your backup generator. The main thing is to first reduce your power requirements significantly. No electric heating! Use propane for your cooktop, oven, and clothes dryer. You might need 100-200 gallons per year (i.e. one or two fill-ups of a 100 gallon tank). As a backup (if you don’t want to depend on the propane delivery guy), you can always have a wood cooktop/oven and a clothesline. Electricity should only be used for lighting, pumps, computers, A/V, communications, and small appliances. Fridge/freezer should be super-efficient. Good off-grid heat/hot water sources include passive solar, solar thermal, and wood, perhaps with a propane backup.
There are many good cost estimators online to evaluate but we can’t only rely on that. Its good to go speak to a local installer face to face as well to understand the price an whats involved. Some installers are a bit tricky as well. They give you the cost of the system and installation but don’t tell you that they will have an electrical engineer cost to come and help interconnect the system. Make sure you go use an electrical contractor who is also a pv installer. Also, watch out for the build it yourself solar panels. In order for them to be approved for incentives, they need to be ul listed and if you build them, they wont be. In addition, you need to be extremely comfortable getting up on your roof to ensure they they dont blow all over the place. Just go and speak to your local solar pv installer.
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