Solar Energy for the Home

By Mark J. Donovan

Solar power has great potential for the home, however in my opinion it is still not there for the average homeowner. It is just still too expensive for the average homeowner to install and the payback is extremely long.

I recently investigated adding solar panels to my home and was less than impressed with the material and labor costs.

There are a couple of websites that actually provide online tools to aid in calculating roof solar panels and associated hardware for your specific home needs/goals.

Using these tools, I determined it would take about 30-35 years to break even on the investment; however the warranty on the panels was around 25 years.

In my opinion the ROI is too long, and the warranty needs to be at least as long as the time it takes to recover the costs.

Solar panel technology is improving and I think it is an excellent complementary source of power to the home. However, prices still need to drop before this market really explodes.