Comment by ACCount39
1 day ago
Solar panels are getting cheap enough for grid hook-ups, installation and regulatory approval to become the bottlenecks.
Plug-in solar is suboptimal in many ways, but it does sidestep a lot of those hurdles. Not too surprised to see it on the rise.
Another thing that might be worth keeping in mind is that plug-in solar panels are often installed vertically - i.e. balcony solar. In which case the peak of the panel's generation is offset to the edge of the typical "duck curve". If it gets popular enough to affect the grid, it might get the solar-induced demand slump larger, but make the edges even sharper.
Would that make grid scale battery storage with its instant response even more important?
Solar panel installation costs, at least in the US haven't dropped in 15 years. It's still $25-30k to install 4kW-6kW worth of solar panels.
That’s absolutely crazy, in Australia you could probably get a 30 kW commercial system installed for that. On my house I paid about US$6.5K for a 6.6 kW of panels and a 5 kW inverter, years ago. You’d get the same thing for a bit under US$5K today here.
For the price you’re talking about, you could also get a system with 15 kW of panels with a good 20-30 kWh of battery storage too!
I'm in the US and I did my own install.
It's the regulation cost that's really hurting us.
Just the required paperwork for the permit in my region cost ~2.5k. structural engineer was 800, architecture diagram was 800, certified electrician stamp on the plans was 800.
Add in the extra cost to facilitate RSD (~5k after mlpe devices, and extra wiring) and tack on the cost for utility interconnection agreements.
Then deal with the NEC requiring UL listed items with no/very little cross certification with things like CE which effectively means you can't buy equipment from China, at least not without a US shop taking a huge markup for branding/certs.
---
Overall, it's just a mess. I walked away from the project (completed, all approved) with a huge dose of skepticism for the permitting/certification/approval process.
11.2kw in panels, ~12kwh lfp battery, split phase 240v install - ~28k usd.
Of which ~10k was regulation driven, and doesn't change much by install size.
8 replies →
That’s absolutely insane. I just had 5400Wp of panels installed with 15kWh of battery storage and it was ~€12k total. The battery was a bit over half of the costs. That’s the total cost, hardware and labour.
No need for permits for rooftop solar and the only dealings I had with the energy company was filling out an online form to register it. Took maybe 2 minutes.
Confirming: This is "plugin" solar with no grid export capability right?
6 replies →
Your numbers are way too high. I live in the very expensive San Francisco Bay Area and my system 6kW before federal tax credits was 16k to install in 2021. After credits it was < $12k. I have a friend in Tucson AZ who just paid $12K for a 4kW system with no subsidies.
I did not add a battery because at the time it would have doubled the price. Also, because I have net metering the battery never pays itself off.
Strange, I was looking (in SF) in the end of 2022 for a 4kW system and I was getting quotes of $20k before credits.
(My installer ended up flaking on me, and then I gave up because NEM 3.0 was coming too soon to find a fallback.)
Was this rooftop or ground mount? Asking because I keep getting rooftop quotes closer to $20k than $12k
The US is getting fleeced! 8 years ago it cost me about $10k AUD to install 6kW. Yes, it came with a $2.8k subsidy but still we are talking about a third.. 8 years ago.. And I paid extra for a Fronius inverter.
The first rule of getting solar panels is never look at prices after you buy your system. :P
At least you bought them 8 years ago and not 20, you could have had a 1.5kW system for the same price.
US blue-collar labor is very expensive.
Homeowners are getting the short end, but the solar installers are doing well.
8 replies →
That's why I installed my 13kw system myself. I saved a ton of money, assuming you don't equate time with money, otherwise it will have cost me a fortune. It was a great learning experience, and quite fun.
Same boat here. I installed my own ground mounted array at double the capacity for half the quoted price from the local installer, even with an electrician coming in to do last mile hookup. Learned a ton. Got a couple fun new tools. Already have my next spot picked out.
Same here. Not quite 13kW just yet, but getting there. Only one string. Built it myself and learned a lot.
I don't believe this is real. I'm in Europe and installed 4kW with 4kW of storage for a total of ~3.6k.
> I don't believe this is real.
> I'm in Europe
Wait until you hear about American Insulin.
That’s wild. I’m getting 12x 450kW panels (5.4kW) and a 10kWh battery installed on my roof this month for a grand total of like €7k.
That’s the total cost including all materials and labour from scratch to a fully functioning system.
Is this Germany - is there a subsidy included here?
2 replies →
Dominated by labor costs, right? It'll probably just keep going up at this point, even if the panel cost went to zero.
A lot of the "labor" costs are just regulatory/permitting in disguise. An expedited approval regime with standards such that, permits-wise, installing solar panels was as easy as installing an EV charger would save a ton of money.
Matt Ferrell just did a video on this recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3eEzdpi12I
10 replies →
Generally correct. Here in Washington I could get Signature Solar to ship me 31 excellent Canadian Solar bifacial panels on a pallet for $9200 plus tax and shipping (so add another grand or so). This would be 21kW of solar (plus a bit if bifacial gain kicks in), which is a ton - you could even do some winter work with that, if angled correctly.
This setup would cost north of $50k (possibly north of $75k, depending) if installed by contractors. Labor costs are extremely high here, since COL is extremely high.
2 replies →
You're scooping up a lot of regulation and red tape in that "labor" bucket.
1 reply →
Rooftop solar generally requires professional installation. Balcony solar, as discussed in the article, does not require professional installation and simply plugs directly into an outlet.
Depends on where you are. I can DIY the physical mounting parts of a rooftop install where I live (San Francisco), but a licensed electrician needs to do (or at least supervise) the wiring.
I do wonder if having an electrician come by after the fact to inspect it counts as "supervising", though.
5 replies →
That pricing is insane. I had 11.3 kWp of panels + 48 kWh of batteries installed in the Bay Area a few months ago, for $40k (shoutouts to Potrero Energy).
$25-30k is astronomical! Just to install panels on a roof? Wow everything is the states is such a rip off.
No, just the things that make life better.
Free refills on soft drinks are generally still a thing in the U.S.
US installation costs seem insanely inflated compared to the rest of the world.
6kW fixed solar installation in the UK is £8k.
$30k is mad.
I paid much less than that for much more power in the US in 2023.
> It's still $25-30k to install 4kW-6kW worth of solar panels.
You mean "to have installed".
I installed 6.7kW for $12k, but did all the work myself (with a permit).
I've always wondered if its possible to just buy and install the panels yourself.
I designed / built / installed an 11kw system with 55kwh of batteries in 2024. It was a fun hobby for a year, I loved it. Grid buyback is only $0.03-$0.04/kwh (while cost is $0.37-$0.42/kwh) so, not really worth it. We live among tall trees, but still managed to generate 75% of our yearly solar needs last year.
Permitting was new for me and it was tough to navigate alone, but definitely possible.
Yes, but... I just did a solar install, the utility is likely to confirm you have a building permit for the array, and the utility came by to verify the shutoff works.
If you don't have utility approval to connect, you won't get net metering benefits, although you could offset active use (and if you had battery storage, I guess you could make it work). At least my meter doesn't run backwards, it has a count for energy in and a count for energy out. If we didn't have utility approval and had significant energy out, I'm guessing there would be questions. We have a fairly generous tarrif, and our system doesn't make sense without utility approval --- we generate on one meter and use on another meter and rely on meter aggrigation for the generation and use to offset, and they will offset 1 for 1, once the account gets fully set up.
2 replies →
It depends on where you live. Some places will let you do everything yourself (though you may need to get permits), other places will let you mount the panels but not let you do the electrical, others will let you do the electrical but require an electrician to sign off on it, etc.
We paid $17k ($12k after subsidies) to install 5kW in Arizona five years ago.
My Dad is getting 10kW of panels and an inverter installed tomorrow. Fully installed and permitted for $5k AUD.
I got 7.6kW fully installed with inverter for $8k CAD a few years ago.
Only thing more annoying (jealous) than aussie solar is europeans with 100g fiber for €50
Yet another data point: ten years ago it was £5,500 for a 3.9kW system. The largest possible on the "simple" permitting scheme. I did however have to spend another £1000 a few years later on retrofitting bird-proofing. You don't want to build a pigeon farm by mistake.
At that date I got into the feed-in-tariff scheme, and it has long since paid for itself just in cheques mailed to me by the utility.
Funny. I installed my 2 kWp entirely DIY and plan to add another 2 kWp this month.
With the plugin solar I can imagine people in single family residential installing them on both sides of fences and gates to get an around the day benefit.
Also, with the price of solar panels decreasing below most (wood?) building materials with way higher durability, no paint required, why wouldn't it replace most sun facing siding applications aside from being "ugly".
There is a special place in hell reserved for the Karens who call PV panels ugly.
A lot of people call any change ugly.
> it gets popular enough to affect the grid,
The plug in solar systems are small and usually mounted in ways that don’t capture as much energy as the same panels mounted on a roof. These systems aren’t going to get popular enough to make a big difference in anything.
I think it’s nice that they’re available for people to do some small scale offsets, but I think they’re more of a gateway to better solar installations. They also send people down the path of investigating battery storage add-ons, which might actually be a better long term solution for everyone.
If we can get to a point where we can buy plug-in batteries that are subsidized by requiring coordination with the grid, the power companies could get distributed, controlled battery storage to work with their demand curves. This can already happen with the bigger permanent install batteries.
>These systems aren’t going to get popular enough to make a big difference in anything.
They already are in a few countries.