There are 2 important factors that govern solar power cost and they are quite simply, the assembly cost of the solar panels and the installment cost of the solar system in your home.

Solar panels may be green, eco-friendly and also help to save our planet but until they can compete in the energy marketplace then they will never be widely used. A new coal-burning plant can easily deliver electricity at $2 per watt and making this the benchmark figure that the solar experts want to match.

For the last twenty years scientists have been developing innovative and cheaper designs of solar panels. It is the Silicone based solar photovoltaic panels that have dominated the industry and they sell for about $3 a watt, however this is before installation.

For some time there was a real shortage of silicone and although the demand for solar panels was increasing, the solar panel suppliers were not able to meet that demand. Now even though there is an ample supply of silicone, nevertheless the process of refining it to produce the semiconductors is a costly process and there are not too many facilities that do this. The handful of factories that are able to manufacture this refined silicone have a monopoly on the supply meaning that even though the demand is high they can keep the price inflated.

The actual price of refined silicone is one of the main factors in the cost of solar panels. The key thrust of research taking place today is in improving ways to reduce the quantity of silicone that is needed to produce a solar panel. There is also research taking place with alternative cheaper materials that are equally effective. There are certain organic materials that have semiconductor properties which may be used rather than silicone.

The expense of installation will vary quite significantly depending on whether you do it yourself or if you call in a professional installer. To install a solar power system in your home using a specialist installer will cost you between $10 - $12 per watt. If you install the solar system by yourself then it will most likely cost you about $4 per watt.

While the initial cost of installation of a home solar energy system would still be fairly expensive it is inevitable that in the near future, given the astounding advancements that are taking place, the price will come down. In the mean time, governments all over the world are encouraging and subsidizing the use of this technology by giving tax rebates and credits for home owners who install solar power systems.

Therefore if you install your solar power system by yourself at the cost of about $4 per watt and then claim all the tax savings and credits that are available in the area, then your solar power cost may not be so far from the $2 per watt benchmark of the energy delivered by the coal-burning plant.

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