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Do you think rooftop solar will get cheaper after the tax break is gone? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

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I just had another solar installer come by. Like usual, they refused to show me a fucking itemized bill of the total install cost. The math they presented was utter horseshit. But when I read between the lines, I was able to come out with a $3.50/W installed price (6KW system for ~$21k) and that let me do some calculations. In their idealized, guaranteed, projections the system would pay for itself after 7 or so years. Not the worst, tbh.

Anyways I think $3.50/W installed is... high. The panels are now bought in bulk for less than $0.3/W. Of course there's the interconnection, inverters, wiring, panel mounts and brackets, labor, and profit.

But on my home with a projected 6KW system that comes to $1.8k in panels leaving $20k for the rest. I've got a feeling that will come down by necessity once the tax credit goes away.

Does anyone work for an installer? Where is all of that money going?

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[–] Thorry@feddit.org 17 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

$21K for 6KW? Holy shit....

I had a 3KW system installed in 2022, total costs were around $3.5K (including some changes to my electrical setup to fit it in). Looking up current pricing around here, the same setup would be cheaper still.

6KW is obviously bigger and your situation may be more complex, but anything above $10K seems like a ripoff for me.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Reads to me like someone paid electrician rates for every hour of labor involved. Much cheaper to do most of the work yourself and then have it inspected, or even then pay to have it fixed/brought-up-to-code/whatever.

Personally, I'm going the DIY route partially because I want it designed for inspection and servicability to a degree most installers would never accomodate, and certainly not for less than, say, 5x what it would cost to impliment myself.

[–] Thorry@feddit.org 5 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Looked up the invoice for you (rounded the numbers for simplicity):

Panels (8x) including micro inverters, all of the mounting hardware, cables etc. - $2500 Hardware for upgrading the electrical panel - $400 Labour, various items, delivery costs - $600

IIRC it was 3 dudes for about half a day. Two dudes for the panels and an electrician that checked what the panel dudes did on the roof and upgraded my electrical panel.

I felt like it was a pretty good deal. Panels could have been cheaper, but I wanted the full black ones. And a single inverter would have been cheaper than micro inverters, but the panels are partly shaded a lot of the time due to a tree. Calculations I did showed the extra price of the micro inverters would be worth it to get the most out of the panels.