Samuel A Clarke.com

Clean and green. That seems to be the buzz words of the century. With sky rocketing energy prices, pollution, and dwindling resources, more and more people are looking towards alternative energy sources like solar panel energy collection. Also, the prices of key clean energy technologies are plummeting. This is bringing many technologies, such as distributed solar, and energy storage, closer and closer to mass deployment.

Just look at the cost of solar panels today. Solar panels are approximately 20% below the price that of what they where a year ago! Also best of all, they should continue dropping for the foreseeable future! In other words, the performance/price ratio is improving exponentially. We also see the costs per watt In advanced thin films dropping. Even more dramatic price drops are occurring in battery storage systems across a range of chemistries with prices halving themselves in the the last year. Plummeting prices that translate to rising performance are good news for developers, electric car-makers, the global industry at large, and all the rest of us too.

It may not be long before you can say ‘goodbye’ to that ever increasing, and outrageous, hydro bill we all are paying each month. A quick search of a “well known” auction website for ‘solar panel’ shows that, if you were willing to assemble your own solar panel collection system, you could get started for as little as $1.40/per Watt! Possibly for much less! How many Watts of solar panel energy could your buy with just ONE year’s hydro payments? Imagine how many Watts of solar panel energy you will be able to buy in a year from now!! It is for this reason I have; “Build a solar panel”, down on my list of projects to do. Watch for my future article and “How To” on this solar panel project.