DIY Solar Panels for Home

Solar energy systems are rapidly becoming popular with homeowners for obvious reasons. For one thing, these are pocket-friendly installations from the purchase of the materials to the maintenance of the system as well as the savings in utility rates that can be enjoyed during the system’s lifespan. For another thing, these are eco-friendly energy systems that harness the world’s ultimate renewable resource – the sun, of course – with none of the resultant air, water and soil pollution of the main electricity grid. But to be able to truly enjoy the financial savings from the first get-go, it is necessary to undertake DIY solar panels as a project.

Financial Savings

Yes, there are premade solar panels offered by numerous manufacturers and resellers in brick-and-mortar stores and online sites that anybody with wads of dollars in their pockets or their bank accounts can readily purchase. These prefabricated solar panels are easy to install since no other manual processes are necessary before these can be integrated into the solar energy system.

But in stark contrast with DIY solar panels, prefabricated solar panels are expensive. Let’s take an average premade solar panel costing $900 that amounts to approximately $12 per watt of electricity produced. When said panels are incorporated in a medium-sized system for a mid-sized house with energy-efficient setup in place, the entire system will cost $25,000 on average. In a large house, the entire solar energy system can cost upwards of $50,000 easily.

Take note that approximately 70 to 80 percent of the total costs will be for the solar panels alone. Homeowners must also account for incidental expenses as well as unforeseen costs during the actual installation of the solar panels. And with labor costs for professional solar builders on the high end of the price spectrum, homeowners have to shell out more dollars.

Now, if you decide to build your own DIY solar panels, your financial savings are substantial, to say the least, for two reasons. First, it is easy to build solar panels from affordable raw materials and even usable scrap materials. The costs for these materials amount to a hundred dollars on average and even lesser if you can salvage scrap materials like wood. In contrast, a similar-sized prefabricated solar panel will easily cost $900 as previously mentioned.

Second, labor costs can be avoided. You will be doing all of the work in assembling the raw materials for the DIY solar panels and then assembling the entire system from scratch. With comprehensive resources like Earth4Energy that teaches DIY enthusiasts how to build solar panels, the jobs area actually easy to accomplish.

In the end, your financials savings for the DIY panels as against the prefabricated panels can amount to a minimum of $800 per panel. If the entire system requires 25 panels, it would amount to a total savings of $20,000 on the panels alone. In this day and age of foreclosures, the $20,000 will go a long way toward paying off the mortgage. Add in the benefits of tax breaks on solar energy systems granted by the federal and state governments as well as the additional value to your energy-efficient home and you have more reasons to opt for DIY solar panels.

Relative Simplicity of Components

Contrary to popular opinion, DIY solar energy systems are relatively easy to design, install and maintain even by a first-time DIY enthusiast. E-books with video tutorials like Earth4Energy are valuable resources in this aspect.

Once you take a look into the components of the DIY solar panels and the entire energy system itself, you will quickly realize that the parts are also relatively simple to understand. These parts can also be sourced from the nearest hardware, purchased from an online site or salvaged from a junk shop. Said components include:

• Solar cells can be bought online or in hardware stores. You may also use used or salvaged cells to further keep the costs down although it will be more difficult to build the solar panels out of these “broken cells”.
• The container for the DIY solar panels can be composed of plywood, silicon caulk, wood glue, Jones plug, screws, Plexiglas, paint and wirings for the circuitry. All of these materials can be sourced from the same site or store where the solar cells have been purchased. Or better yet, look around the house for scrap materials.

Once the homemade solar panels have been constructed, you must also look into the other important components of the alternative energy system. These components include:

• Charge controller
• Lead acid deep cycle batteries
• DC disconnect
• AC breaker panel
• Power inverter
• Kilowatt hour meter
• System meter

Although you have to spend money on these complementary parts to the DIY solar panels, your bank account will not be emptied of its contents. Besides, excellent resources like Earth4Energy will also contain tips on how to save on costs for these components.

Ease of Assembly

Going back to the homemade solar panels, the parts are also easy to assemble. The do-it-yourself instructions for these solar panels can be summarized as follows:

• Build the container for the solar panel. This can be made from the plywood, Plexiglas and fiberboard shaped into squares according to the desired size of the solar panels.
• Solder the solar cells in place by using good glue.
• Wire the solar cells together.
• Attach the solar cells to the container.
• Take the solar panel for a test run.

The above mentioned instructions are simplistic but these provide a good overview of the ease with which DIY solar panels can be made and then used in a functional system. The details are fleshed out through written instructions, video tutorials and detailed diagrams of the steps involved in the assembly of the solar panels, said details of which are provided in e-books like Earth4Energy. Your job then is to understand the steps, purchase the parts and then follow the steps outlined in the e-book in a way reminiscent of a learn-as-you-go school.