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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Is it? I keep hearing something like $30k. That might pay for itself over time, but it's hardly cheap.

If you have to hire Some Guy to do anything to your entire roof, it'll cost you $30k. The panels are basically free these days, the labor required to install them is not.

Rooftop solar and grid scale solar farms are two completely different things. Rooftop solar requires a custom install for every home. Solar farms can leverage economies of scale to drive costs lower and lower.

Come to Europe. Our discount stores will sell you a kit for €200-€300. Not 20k-30k, 200-300.

That's on the small side of things, of course, but we also have PV-covered carports for about the same as a non-PV-covered carport: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/

The fact that solar panels are getting cheaper on a sqft basis than plywood or sheet metal means we are going to stat to shove them in lots of places we never expected to especially if micro inverters or optimizes become cheap as well. why not use solar panels on your fence if it is cheaper than any other options.

> why not use solar panels on your fence if it is cheaper than any other options.

I was considering this earlier in the year, as it happens.

The biggest issue I can see is that you would want a micro inverter or solar optimizer on every panel or every other panel to get decent output which would add a lot to the cost.

Don't take my word for it because I still feel like I don't fully understand the situation, but are you aware of the current state of bypass diodes and shadow scanning in mppts? The situation seems to have changed a lot in recent years.

Just checked my local online store - non-structural plywood is still about 5-10x cheaper.

I don't think you realize how little power does apartment needs. Your average American/AU/NZ home is using 10x more energy.

I know exactly how little power an apartment needs, that's why I had the entire second paragraph.

Solar panels cost less than $1/Watt. Then you need some brackets to hold them, some wiring, and likely an MPPT controller. The rest of that price is red tape specific to your locality.

They're so cheap that bars in Colombia had panels as their terasse awnings. Cheaper than cloth and makes power.

Vast majority of costs is in the installation and regulation, Australia home installation costs are a fraction of the cost of the USA and in Europe with plug in solar its a few hundred Euros for a couple panels and small inverter for a small setup

Cost per kW/mW is much lower at grid scale than home scale. For a home installation you are also paying for the roof mounting, running cabling through your house, inverter(s), and a transfer switch at minimum.

The cost of the panels themselves is becoming one of the cheaper parts of that project.

They're talking about grid scale solar, not home installations.

$30k for what? Your house? Prices vary massively depending on needs, and whether or not you want to reduce grid usage, time shift grid usage, or replace it entirely and go off-grid.

This article isn't about personal solar installations, in any event.

Home solar makes sense for the same type of homes that need to drill their own well. For everyone else, grid solar makes most economic sense.

The city grew around my house and now I have access to city water if I want. I stick with my well because it is cheaper. Even if I had to drill a new well, over 20 years it is cheaper than city water. Pipes and city scale treatments that I don't need are expensive.

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