Residential solar installations in the US are often 3X+ more expensive than other developed nations. Lots of contributing factors, but primarily driven by higher labor, permitting, and material costs (i.e. heavy tariffs on Chinese panels limit panel selection in US).
American homeowners pay about 2-3 times what German homeowners pay to install solar panels.I don't think you're likely to see that anytime soon, if ever, in the US. Panels are extremely cheap (even here in the US where prices are inflated due to tariffs), but the other costs with system installation remain high (relative to other developed nations). You can get close to your desired price point by going with a DIY solution and outsourcing the planset development and some of the installation. But this isn't palatable for most folks.
We have the same problem with residential HVAC. American homeowners pay 3-4 times what Japanese homeowners pay to install mini-splits.
Costs are much higher in the United States. High tariffs increase the hard costs of the hardware. Permitting and regulations increase the soft costs of the installation. Skilled labor is more expensive. Profit margins are much higher. Contractors also spend a lot of money on sales and marketing, and those costs get passed through to the customer.
If we could pay German prices for solar panels, then the payback would be much faster. If we could pay Japanese prices for mini-splits, then we wouldn't have so many HVAC threads about the second floor being too hot.
DIY saves so much money because the costs are so high, but solar is harder to DIY than HVAC.
Statistics: Posted by talzara — Sat Jul 27, 2024 2:24 pm — Replies 59 — Views 3604