Solar Buying Guide

Review of SunForce panels at CompUSA

This morning as I was online at our local news site, I happened to see an ad for some solar equipment I had seen just two days ago.  I was at CompUSA at our local mall to look at wireless cards when something near the front of the store caught my eye. There was the telltale shiny surface inside of a frame, and at once I knew what it had to be – solar panels! Solar panels at a computer store, of all places! I was excited to see what they were all about.

Upon closer inspection, though it would have been really neat to have a solar panel kit and extra panels for quick, easy power generation, the prices were sky high compared to what I knew they could be. I took about two or three glances at the nice boxes of solar power generator kits and spare panels, even went up to one of the boxes to read the information, but the prices were the biggest drawback. Let me describe this for you.

SunForce 50232 Folding Solar Panel – 30 Watt – $119.99

Compare this price with that at Sun Electronics, which has the cheapest prices on quality solar panels I’ve seen. You can’t even get a 30-watt panel at Sun Electronics. The minimum wattage is 42 watts, and that’s only a fraction of the price at $60.00.   Read more…

Sun Electronics – Best Prices on Solar

In striving to bring you the lowest possible prices on solar panels and other equipment, I can’t help but notice Sun Electronics.  They have some incredibly low prices on solar panels, as low as $1.20/watt for single panels, and as low as $0.97 for the panels if included in a PV system.   I am just amazed at these prices for quality products.

Sun Electronics is based in Miami, FL and Phoenix AZ, two very sunny states that are lucky to have such a company to help foster their growing solar industries.  On their homepage, they claim that an independent study has found that they have some of the most rock-bottom prices on solar panels compared to other major vendors, and that’s easy to believe based on my independent Internet research.  They ship nationwide, so there’s no excuse not to order from them and save a huge amount of money.

I have no relationship to anyone at Sun Electronics, but I do stand to benefit if they get more business.  Prices will drop even more, making my first home solar power system that much cheaper when we decide to get one installed.

The Solar FlexRack

This is an innovative new product designed to drastically cut the installation time for a new solar power system.  Also, instead of having a team of people, only 2-3 people are needed.  The Solar FlexRack works by coming pre-assembled, so that only a minimum of 2 people are needed to unfold and install it.  It’s much like a pre-fabricated house is made at the factory and shipped to the site, offering huge savings on installation time compared to building a house from individual studs.

This is a huge idea; the Solar FlexRack works for ground mounts as well as roof mounts.  It looks as though it’s designed for flat surfaces though; on roofs that are slanted as most residential homes will have, the Solar FlexRack’s angle will be too steep to optimally catch direct sunlight.  However, if you’re a business with a flat roof as most businesses are, this will really be a time and cost-saver.

Plug and Play Solar

Every now and then I see a good idea and it’s great to be able to tell people about it.  For example, take Andalay Solar, which is becoming Westinghouse Solar.  They sell what’s essentially a plug-and-play solar power system – the panels come with built-in Enphase microinverters, meaning that 12/24/48V DC is being converted directly to 120V AC at the panel, and then that power is fed into the wiring of the home or business.

One of the advantages of this system that no huge central inverter is required to convert all the power from the panels from DC to AC.  If you want to expand the power capacity of your system by adding more panels, you won’t have to replace the inverter with a higher model, which is great because the inverter is usually the single most expensive item of a PV power system.

Another advantage is that the panels will automatically adjust themselves to deliver the most optimized power output to your home or business.  If one panel is shaded by a tree or something, that won’t automatically bring down the power output of your whole system the way that normal panels without microinverters can.

Solar panels today are like early computers were – everything has to be installed and configured manually.  It takes technological progress before systems can become more simplified and easier to use.  Now we just take a peripheral, plug it in to our USB hub, and we’re ready to go – no manual configuration, setting interrupts, etc.