What’s the Average Cost to Install a Solar-Electric System to Power Your Home?

Reader Contribution by Linda Pinkham
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What’s the average cost to install a solar-electric system to power your home?

This question is one of the most frequently asked in the industry, and also the question that makes most solar installers very uneasy — not because they don’t want to give you a forthright answer, but because the correct answer for any individual will depend on a number of variables that dramatically affect the price.

For example, is your home on-grid or off-grid? If it’s off grid, you will need additional equipment such as a charge controller, monitors and storage batteries. Next you will need to figure out how much energy your home will use and how much storage (number of batteries) you will need. The size of your system and battery bank will depend on how much sun your location receives (solar insolation) and how many consecutive days overcast conditions may keep your system from producing energy. More than likely, you will want to add a backup engine-generator to your system rather than having to size your battery bank to meet the worst-case scenario. A generator will also help you maintain the health of your battery bank, safeguarding a large part of your investment.

Most off-grid homes need to be very energy-wise to keep costs for a solar energy system within bounds. Although if the utility grid is located more than one-half mile away, even a fairly large solar-electric system will cost less than having the utility bring in power. To keep system costs down, the quick rule here is that every dollar spent on saving energy, such as using low wattage, compact fluorescent light bulbs and installing energy saving appliances, will save $5 or more on solar generating equipment. Some types of appliances, such as clothes dryers, electric ranges and most air conditioning units are simply altogether impractical.

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