PV Gap

John Said:

Where to buy solar panels?

We Answered:

First you have to figure out how much electricity is needed to run your house. Check your electric bills for the last year, figure out an average KWH/ day and the maximum KWH/day used in the year.

Your normal solar system can only generate usable electricity for less than 8 hours a day in the summer and 5 hours a day in the winter. Varies some as you move farther north and how many cloudy days you have. Example Tucson AZ is considered an ideal climate for solar power and has 7.42 sun hours per day maximum and 6.01 sun hours per day minimum (winter) with an average of 6.57 sun hours per day This means an average of 6.5 hours per day of usable solar electricity. Do a search on " Insolation chart " to find your area.

Anyway a half decent price for a 1.9 KW system which produces approximately 12KWH per day is around $13,000 un-installed. Add the cost of the installation and the fact that 12 KWH per day is not enough to reduce your bill to zero and a typical whole house system will cost around $80,000 without installation and without battery backups for nighttime electricity.

General information: http://www.homepower.com/basics/solar/
Good luck
Google search on quotes for solar: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwi…