The solar energy technologies office supports analysis teams at national laboratories to assess technology costs location specific competitive advantages policy impacts on system financing and to perform detailed levelized cost of energy lcoe analyses.
Solar panel project cost.
Until the end of 2020 you can deduct 26 of the installation costs with the federal investment tax credit itc.
However solarreviews handles more than 1 000 quote requests per day and the current average price we see on our marketplace is 2 60 per watt.
Expect to pay 2 50 to 3 50 per watt with most systems in the 3kw to 10kw range.
The average solar panel payback period is 7 to 12 years and solar energy saves 600 to 2 000 per year on electricity costs.
Current industry average cost between 3 to 4 per watt average size solar panel system between 5 and 6 kilowatts a kilowatt is 1000 watts for the sake of a concise example let s go with these numbers from solar action alliance.
This increases labor and material costs and adds to the total solar panel cost.
Installing a solar panel system costs an average of 23 597 and dropping.
The final kwh cost is 20 lower than a ground based project.
Same goes for trenching if a ground mounted solar system is being installed then trenching can add significant time labor and expense to a project thereby increasing the solar panel installation cost.
Add in another 3 000 to 10 000 for other necessary components such as racks for the panels wiring solar inverter costs and the total solar panel installation cost would now be closer to 20 000.
Though cost will range based on a number of factors like location and available sunlight hours top commercial provider first solar has stated that the cost per watt for solar installations at this scale is somewhere around 1 watt.
3 26 per watt x 5 000 watts 16 300 per system before the 30 itc tax credit.
The cost for large projects is about 763 per kwp all included mooring cable inverters electric cabinet while the final kwh price is in the range of 33 to 54 per mwh depending on the local radiation conditions.
The most recent official data from the doe funded lawrence berkeley labs published in september 2019 found that the median cost of residential solar panels is 3 70 watt.
Depending on the size of the system the solar panels cost would be between 4 000 and 16 000.
Most homeowners pay between 16 532 and 30 820.
For the upgrade installation they are considering now the cost would be 13 874 after federal tax credits and they have not decided yet if they would pay cash or opt for a solar loan or lease.
Potential estimation and conclusion.