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Comment by bluSCALE4 | Hacker News Reader

I keep seeing articles like this but install prices don't go down at all. Does news like this only apply to people building PV farms?

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Panel cost is probably 10-20% of a total install cost. What you're paying for is labour, inverter, cabling and metal mounting equipment. Mostly labour. If you're able to self install you can shave years off ROI.

Yeah, I was looking into this. Look like I can get most of the equipment for a 18kW system for roughly 15k.

DIY install is great. It's really not hard and saves a huge amount of money.

Where can you purchase everything wholesale?

I got my equipment through a local wholesaler. I built a BOM using solardesigntool and submitted through them. The wholesaler called me and accommodated me as a DIYer. CED Greentech was the company.

Why can’t we make those things cheaper?

Labour: Having people climb around roofs is dangerous, and people with dangerous work expect higher compensation.

Inverter: Cost of materials, assembly, and QA. You want good stuff for the amount of current passing through.

Cabling: Cabling is mostly materials in cost. Conductive metals are expensive.

Metal Mounting: It's heavy, and requires lots of raw material and expensive equipment to create it.

But presumably it’s cheaper for the average HN reader to hire a skilled tradesman to do the install than to take the, say, 2% chance of a debilitating fall from the roof?

With inflation install costs staying flat is actually a price decrease.

The article talks about modules at $0.17/watt, or $17 per 100 watts. The DIY prices for modules I see are around $1 per watt, and have been for a long time.

Where do you get these things?

Wholesale?

Probably wholesale vs retail ?

Factor of five markup?

Craigslist

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