I'm going to be buying panels soon, best price per watt, Southeastern USA?

Elmo

Elmo

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Joined
Feb 19, 2017
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What's the best deal available at the moment on panels?

My roof is basically 94" or 2.38 meters wide by 30 feet or 9.14 meters long.. I intend to start at one end and eventually cover the entire thing or as much as necessary but it will have to be a bit at a time so I'm also looking at consistent availability over at least several months to a year or more.

I can find panels for $0.50 US per watt on Craigslist, but I don't have repeatability with that, once they are gone they are gone.
 
It appears that you can fit about 12 panels on your roof. Thats about 3600 watts max.

Just save your money until you can buy them all at once so you will have all the same type.

$0.50/watt is about the best price you're going to find for new panels.
 
Yeah, I figured with the dropping prices that was a good move but it's such a PITA to go without enough solar, I loathe that damn generator. I'd rather put money in more solar than a quiet generator though.

Sometimes I charge with my car alternator because the car is so much quieter.. Overall the efficiency isn't far off the same as the generator but it's slower with the car, maybe if I had a 250A alternator like I see the stereo enthusiasts with.
 
you could always do a wind turbine in the meantime. right now near gainesville, we arw having winds in excess of 20mph. you can make a wind turbine really cheap. im designing a vawt id like to try
 
I just sent them an inquiry on how much it would cost for 10 or 20 panels shipped. The costs they are giving ($.28 - $.58-ish) is the costs per watt and they don't list the shipping anywhere. You have to contact tony@sunelec.com to get a quote. They have several warehouses in several locations.

quote from their site:
Our current Sunelec warehouse locations:
Miami, FL; Phx., AZ; Sacramento, CA; Trenton, NJ, Denver, CO; El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, TX; Bahamas, and Kingston, Jamaica.
 
They are used panels but at that price it would be worth a shot .
 
Used panels would be right our alley. After all,we're reusing cells ;) We're all about that recycling, yo!
 
Do I understand correctly that you can get 300 watt used panels for $33 each plus shipping?
 
Yeah, that is about correct. HOWEVER, they are doing freight shipping and that's gonna cost at LEAST $150.

Sheesh, figures, trying to find on the site where I saw the price for shipping, and now i can't find it. But they ship via Freight shipping, and it's on a pallet. So you have to calculate that into the cost of the panels. However, if you buy a full pallet's worth of panels, you can get off really cheap.

They had an auction that shipping out of Tx, and the final price was: Lot #3: Renesola 300 Watts (22 Panels) - Located in San Antonio, TX $455.00 USD

That comes to 6.6 kwH worth of panels!! Or, $.06/watt. But then, you have to add in shipping which was probably around the $400 mark being several pallets (2 possibly) for $855, and that comes to $.12/watt. Still a great deal! If you can win an auction at that price.

Their auction site is: http://www.solarauction.info/
Current auction available is: Lot #8: Yingli 230 Watts (20 Panels) - Located in Bahamas (EXPORT ONLY) $1,288.00 USD

At that price, it comes to $.28/watt; add in $400 for freight and we get $.37/watt. Still a really good price; again, if you can win the auction and have that much available funds to drop at once.
 
Yeah, I know about freight shipping, I write off considering a lot of stuff because of that

They have those used 300 watt panels evidently at $39 each in singles, I could handle the cost on ten of them but probably not the shipping too.

Ten would come close to filling my available space, if you consider my roof AC and skylights it might be as much as I can handle.
 
Went up on the roof with the tape measure, 7 of 39x77 panels is what I can accommodate easily and gives me a nice solar sunshade if I stand them up to the optimum angle here, about 56 degrees or so from vertical. Take off the roof AC and I can add one more easily for a total of 8.

That should be enough to do me I think, given the shading effect from the panels on the roof. I'll probably remove the roof AC and put the extra panel in.

Next I'll be thinking of a solar awning at those prices. Two more gives me an 80x77 awning and a grand total of 3kw of peak solar.
 
Your math is a little off , $0.26 per watt X 300 = $78
Panels under 30 cent per watt is not uncommon , but many times it is pallet min. , chineeze and then the shipping .
5? - 8? cents a what is more common with the shipping & china issues .
With 20 - 25 yr. warrentees , it too early to tell about quality .
 
The normal here on craigslist and ebay in phoenix is .28 to .33 per watt, grade a and b, new or used, doesnt seem to affect price.

Ive see auctions at 1 to 6 cents per watt, i wont be letting them get away that cheap bext time.
 
I saw the grade c used renesola panels on sunelec.com for 0.14 per watt

They have snail trails, but they are guaranteed to work. Not sure how long.

They are not for grid tie.

You should call them because their website is not accurate.
 
1958greyhound said:
The normal here on craigslist and ebay in phoenix is .28 to .33 per watt, grade a and b, new or used, doesnt seem to affect price.

Ive see auctions at 1 to 6 cents per watt, i wont be letting them get away that cheap bext time.
Click to expand...

if you see a good deal around phoenix let me know. I'm in need of 3 more 320 watt panels. First 3 i got from santan solar in mesa.
 
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