Top Five Reasons to Build Your Own Solar Panels

Building your own solar panels may be easier than you think. As a matter of fact, if you have a little time on your hands, you can build your own solar panels over the course of a weekend, for between $100 and $200. There are a lot of good reasons to build your own solar panels. Here are a few of them.

1. Building your own solar panels is a lot cheaper than buying them.

One of the biggest reasons that solar panels aren’t more popular is that they are simply very expensive. People who buy their solar panels and outfit their entire homes with them are looking at spending $10,000. And that’s minimum. The good news for these people is that they will probably never pay another electric bill again. The bad news is it will take at least fifteen years for their initial investment to pay for itself.

Even when it comes to less expensive, smaller solar panel kits, a 20 watt solar panel will still cost its buyer a minimum of $150. And these are cheap solar panels that don’t produce all that much electricity. By comparison, with a little time and effort, you can build your own solar panels much more inexpensively, and produce the same amount of energy – or more, depending upon your needs.

2. Waste not, want not.

A lot of do-it-yourself solar panels can be built using damaged or broken solar panel cells that would otherwise end up in the garbage. Solar panel cells are very fragile, like thin glass. Even just shipping solar panel cells can break them, which is why many vendors you will find online actually dip the panels in wax before shipping them to better protect them.

But the main point here is that factories cannot use chipped solar panel cells in their commercial solar panel projects… but you can use them. Finding solar panels that have been only slightly damaged is another great way to save money as you build your own solar panels.

3. Even if your solar solar panels aren’t enough to run your entire house, you will still positively impact your electric bill.

Let’s say you pay $100 per month on average for electricity. Have you paused to consider that this adds up to $1,200 per year? And that’s not counting those very hot months when you can’t help but run your air conditioning unit most of the day; for average Americans, according to MSN Money, $1,400 per year in electric bills is about normal.

In truth, the small solar panels you can build using the do-it-yourself guides available on the internet are not going to be enough to make your entire home power grid independent. A typical DIY solar panel that you can build for less than $200 will generate about 60 to 120 watts; in a week, a 60 watt solar panel can generate about 1400 watt-hours of energy. What can you do with that amount of energy? Here’s a look:

A laptop computer uses anywhere from 40 – 90 watts per hour of use
A 19” television uses about 95 watts per hour
A 17” LCD monitor uses 40 watts per hour
A radio uses 20 – 75 watts per hour

In other words, before you get stars in your eyes about building your own solar panels that will run your entire home for you, a little math will reveal that it will take quite a few DIY solar panels to power your whole home. But, nonetheless, when you build your own solar panels, together with some common-sense energy conservation you can off-set your electricity costs and easily cut your monthly bill by a third or more. Unlike the large commercial solar panels that cost tens of thousands of dollars and take ten or fifteen years (or more!) to repay their owner, DIY solar panels pay their owner back their investment within a couple of months.

4. Building your own solar panels will help save the planet.

By now, hopefully everyone knows that our environment is in dire trouble. After decades of living large (literally), we are rapidly using up our global resources. What kind of world do you want your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to inherit? Better yet, what kind of example do you want to set for your children right now? Imagine what would happen if everyone on your block cut their energy usage by a third! According to figures from the US Department of Energy, the average household in America uses close to 900 kilowatt-hours per month. If you live in a neighborhood with 100 homes, and everyone reduced their energy usage from 900 kilowatt-hours to 600, that would be 30,000 kilowatt-hours saved – and that’s just in one neighborhood in one month. Given this, don’t you think it’s time to do your part?

5. Building your own solar panels is fun.

Finally, besides the fact that you can help save the planet and reduce your own energy bills, building your own solar panels is just plain old-fashioned fun. Most do-it-yourself projects around the home don’t have half the pay-off that building your own solar panels has. Building your own solar panels is a great excuse to pull out some power tools and mess around in the basement or garage for a weekend. Better yet, bring your kids or your friends with you to help your solar panel project. You’ll have a good time together!

About the Author

KN Singer blogs about green living and better health at The Live Better Site.

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