We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities.
Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/
$16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home
That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.
The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.
Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price:
https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola...
And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents.
The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and fly back with it, than to buy local — and now the US is having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized luggage).
(Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as small ones… but usually that makes big things cheaper, not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).
The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.
Well, the USA is one of the few places left that still uses that, so you could…
But even without that, the linked product is the kind of thing two untrained people can do 95% of the installation in an afternoon, with the rest being a trained professional checking the wires and doing the final connection to the grid.
If this was done in a place that already has nearby grid access:
8 h * {$25/h unskilled labour} + 0.5 h * {$50/h electrician} = $225 per one of those, assuming you're doing enough of them to hire at full time rates not contractor rates.
And that's a car port, it isn't designed for optimal installation time.
If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here, which is still cheap enough that you could do each of those on an entirely separate new not yet connected plot of clear land at domestic rates and still be cheaper than the quoted example in the USA.
And that's a car port kit, its a lot simpler to install than installing on a roof of a potentially multi-story house with a steep incline.
It is also completely excluding an inverter and all the additional wiring materials needed to connect it to your house or the labor of modifying your home's wiring. Its literally just the panels and a frame. So add another ~$2k to your prices here, at least. So really more like $8k for materials.
> If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here
Yes, they'll need to tie into the grid, so you're really comparing $18k to $22k and continuing to ignore a lot of labor costs.
Similar prices can be found for just buying panels here in the US as your example link. As someone who has actually looked at solar proposals for an installation on my home, it's not the cost of the panels that's keeping me away from it. It's how much people are wanting to charge to put the panels on my roof, and the fact I don't want to be doing that labor myself at the moment.
At contractor rates.
Hence me saying "assuming you're doing enough of them to hire at full time rates not contractor rates".
That said, I seem to have wildly over-estimated how much electricians get paid, at full-time rates the average in the USA is only $27.79 per hour: https://www.talent.com/salary?job=electrician
> And that's a car port kit, its a lot simpler to install than installing on a roof of a potentially multi-story house with a steep incline.
So do that then.
> So really more like $8k for materials.
You're being ripped off.
You all are.
> Yes, they'll need to tie into the grid, so you're really comparing $18k to $22k and continuing to ignore a lot of labor costs.
No, that's the price if you're putting each pair of these onto its own, new, grid connection.
If you've already got a house, you already have a grid connection.
If you're building a solar park, you share the same grid connection for all of them, you don't put a completely separate connection on each 10 kW because that is a pointless waste of money… but if you did, it would still be cheaper.
And if I'm talking about prices being paid by the company installing them, I'm still needing to do a lot more labor than 8 hours of unskilled labor and half an hour of an electrician and a pile of solar panels. I'm not going to make many deals if I don't have any salespeople, people aren't going to know to hire me if I don't have any advertising/referral business going on, I'm not going to have much continued business if nobody is answering the phone, people are probably going to sue me if I don't have people running support operations, I'll need a good bit of insurance & bonding for all of this, different sites have different needs so someone will have to actually design out the system, people need to handle all the permitting requirements and deal with those processes, I'll probably need to have accountants to help manage these cash flows, my costs for their labor is a good bit more than what they see on their paychecks, etc.
I swear it's like you've never actually looked at the costs of running a business.
Once again, the price of the panels isn't why it cost an average of $22k per home in that example.
> You're being ripped off
Please show me your $0 10kW inverter plus $0 for several hundred feet of decent gauge wire, enough for handling this 10kW plus plenty of safety margin.