California schools $120M solar project - Page 2

 


vaughn wrote:

   Harbor Freight sells several panels & systems. They do mail order and
have a lot of retail stores in the US.

<http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?category=&q=solar&limit2>


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 



OUCH! the larger panels there are 6-8 dollars a watt

 

z wrote:

Much better deals to be had:

(Amazon.com product link shortened)

But I guess schools must buy at a union shop and use union labor to
install, so ...

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 



(Amazon.com product link shortened)
That is still $5.00 per watt, and then you STILL have to pay for shipping.
There are far better deals to be had, but shipping can be a deal killer.(See
http://sunelec.com/  )

My point was that you can probably find several places within driving distance
to buy (say) roofing materials, but you will be lucky to find even one place
that stocks a variety of PV panels.  That one place will have no completion, so
no reason to offer you the best deal.   When you buy a heavy/bulky item from a
local vender, it has likely arrived by the pallet load via a bulk shipper.  Then
you just pick it up and take it home, or pay a small amount to have your order
delivered the "last mile"..  When you buy that same heavy/bulky item from a
remote retailer, they have to custom pack it, and then send you your order via
an expensive retail shipper.  That huge expense at the end of the distribution
chain KILLS any economy of scale that may have occurred earlier.  The consumer
will rarely get a fair shake until an item truly becomes part of the mass
market.

Vaughn

 

On 01/06/2010 19:00, Joerg wrote:

Some element of price gouging unless they are fancy ones.

(Amazon.com product link shortened)

$4/W is about where it starts to get interesting. But PV is pretty much
a none starter economically unless you get some kind of install grant
and a ludicrous price for the electricity generated. And yes there are
fraudsters "generating" way more "solar" electricity than the PV array
they installed could possibly manage (even on cloudy days). It took the
suits in charge of the green refunds a while to catch on...

One thing I will say was that I was surprised how well they did on on a
cold clear winters day in the UK. The cold more or less compensated for
the low angle sun and the array managed nearly 50% of rated output.

Regards,
Martin Brown