Homemade Solar Panel - How Much Does It Cost To Build A Homemade Solar Panel

Question

I'm keen on building a home solar panel as that's the way for present and future energy needs.

Answer 1

I would suggest building a solar water heating panel - that's doable with materials at your local hardware store.  Crudely, it's a box painted black on the inside, with pipes running through it.  You put a glass cover on it to keep the heat in.

If you're dead set on experimenting with solar electricity, it's not practical to build a panel with useful output at home.  If you shop around, you can find large panels for $4-5 a watt, so a 200-watt panel would be $800 to $1000.  Three of those, and you could power a small coffeemaker.  But I see prices dropping, so you might want to wait a year.  If you just want to play with something, you can get a kit that charges a car battery from Harbor Freight for about $300.  It's not much power, though - it will run a compact flourescent bulb for about 20 minutes on a day's charge.

I'm not trying to be down on solar - we have panels on our house.  But I'm fully aware that they're just barely break-even in cost over their life.  Details of our installation below, if you're curious.

Answer 2

A solar panel with 12V electric output costs between $100-250 in the market. You can easily build your own homemade solar panel for $100 with parts you can get from the local hardware store. (The same applies to homemade wind power as well)