Roof characteristics
Your overall solar expenses will also depend on your home’s and roof’s features. Installing solar panels on your home will likely be easier for your installer if your south-facing roof slopes at a 30-degree angle because they can likely place all of your panels on a single roof plane with the best sun exposure (better, more direct sun exposure = fewer panels needed, which will reduce your costs). On the other hand, if your roof features dormers, skylights, or numerous levels, finishing the installation may need more work and cost more money.
Labor
The business doing the work is another element of the solar installation puzzle. The ultimate price solar installers give for an installation relies on factors including your installer’s track record, warranty options, and internal operations. Solar installers charge a range of prices for their services. You can see how a reputable solar installer with superior warranty options may charge more for an installation project while still making a profit.
Check out our post on choosing an installation to understand how we screen installers and how you may and should compare them to one another. EnergySage provides the top solar installers straight to you on our Marketplace.
Permitting and interconnection
Although a sizeable percentage of your solar energy system quotation is made up of equipment and labor expenses, interconnection fees and the price of solar permits might also be important considerations. Typically, in order to reconnect your solar energy system to the grid (also known as “interconnection”), you must get a few solar permission paperwork and pay a charge. The Department of Energy’s SolarApp+ is working to make the interconnection process less expensive and quicker for everyone. This area is seeing some interesting work done to keep the prices and time lag to having an approved interconnection down.
Solar costs over time continue to fall
Not always was a solar panel system $2.77/W. The cost of solar panels was about 13 percent greater just five years ago than it is today:
Prices will probably continue to decline even more in the future, despite the fact that they are now flat as a result of supply chain restrictions. The solar sector is still in its infancy, so there is still room for innovation (and regulatory reforms). Solar buyers should start to notice some of those cost savings influencing their solar sticker price as manufacturing and installation procedures develop and become even more effective.
