Packaged Solar Panel Deals

The other day I talked about buying wind turbines on the internet. Well today I am going to talk about buying solar panels on the internet.

I was looking at my dad's brand new master catalog for a major tool company. In it had a bunch of packaged renewable energy kits in there, like solar panels, just plug and play. There was this one kit it said that it provides 1250 running watts of power. The kit includes 2 - 120w panels, charge controller, rack, batteries and an inverter 12v DC to 120v AC.

The first thing that sent all these red lights going off was that fact it was going to give you a 1250 running watts of power. How is 2- 120 watt panels going to do this? Especially here in Michigan.

Lets start with a little information on how solar works. There is a period of time throughout the day where the sun is at its highest peak. When it is at its peak that is when the solar is making the most power. For places like the Southern part of the United States it is around 5.2 hours a day from about 9:30 - 2:30. For us that live in the Northern part of the United States it is 4.1 hour a day or from about 10 - 2.

So the packaged solar panels say that it will produce 1250 watts of running watt of power if you live where it has peak sunlight for 5.2 hours a day. Not here in Michigan where we have less time during the day.

Well how did they come up with that number?

They took the 2 -120 watt solar panels which equals a total of 240 watts. Now you take that 240 watts and multiply by 5.2 peak sun light and you get 1250 watts of power that it produces for that day.

If you used that same system here in Michigan, it would only produce 984 watts of power for the the day.

The other thing that sent off all these red lights was the cost, $4,799.00. I just quoted a guy the other day a system that was installed for 4 -170 watt panels with all the stuff and connected to the grid for $5,567.00 and it would produce 2788 kW in one day or 83kWh a month. So for $768.00 more when you buy from me, you could a much larger system, you do not have to install, one that you can actually use and not just be standby power like the other one.

So again buyer beware about what you read in a book or see no the internet is not always the truth. So if you are looking for a real solar panel system that will actually be beneficial to you, give me a call for a free quote or buy one from that catalog tool company book and good luck with it.