I've wanted to install home solar for years now. It's difficult in my area. At first, the salespeople would ghost me after learning I didn't want or need financing. Then they lied about waived connection fees for use of a battery to sell power back to the utility during evening peak hours. Then the Federal incentives vanished. Now... the tariffs.
So our approach is to remain in the bottom 2% of electicity consumption for our area.
Stability in government is something we don't appreciate until it's gone.
It is very complicated, but for the countries which are major producers, for most companies, it's between 64% and 430%. China (~85% of production) is 140%.
But even putting aside the tariffs, I'm in the same boat as you - residential/consumer solar in the US is a disaster - everything goes through shady installation companies, the labor and permitting costs are enormous, it's nearly impossible to buy panels yourself at the market rate.
What would you call "the market rate"? You can get pallets of panels right now for ~$0.30/watt at eg Signature Solar (no affiliation, just where I got ours). That might be more than what's available globally, but it's also not a very significant driver of the system cost at that level (our inverter cost more, the ground mounts cost more, the the batteries cost more, the electrician final hookup work cost more, etc).
It's six times what's available globally for "low cost" panels, and three times the "mainstream" price, which is driving the other system components you mention to lower prices. After all, you can power appliances from solar panels without any of those other things.
I guess, but single full size panels generally put out 30-50v, and efficient batteries are usually 48V, so you’d need transformers at least, and the strings coming to our house are generally 350-500V. Newer high voltage battery packs operate at 400V+.
Not to say it’s impossible to run a DC circuit at 12V or less, but wire is expensive, and lower voltage means thicker wire.
A boost regulator to convert 30–50V to 52V or whatever the battery charger needs is probably cheaper than a transformer, and already available as an off-the-shelf part, or you can jugaad it with a few extremely common parts. In this case we don't need the galvanic isolation provided by a transformer.
Heh fair, but point was more that you'd need other components that add to the cost, and for Americans, they probably want to stick with UL listed bits installed by an electrician. But yeah, for someone off-grid or otherwise not subject to rules as strict as US code, maybe?
The NEC lets you do almost anything up to 30 volts and doesn't regulate what's inside the appliances you plug into your outlets, just the wiring that's part of the building.
I thought it was up to 48 volts, but it looks like NFPA 70 Article 725 Class 1 circuits are only up to 30 volts, and there's a power limitation I didn't know about: only 1000 VA. So you can only run a pretty small storage heater from a Class 1 circuit, and even Class 1 circuits have some safety requirements: https://www.ecmweb.com/cee-news-magazine-archive/article/208...
Class 2 and Class 3 also require the use of a listed power supply.
I'm in Poland and every solar installation I've looked at has a pay back time of around 5 years. The main reason is subsidized electricity — consumer prices are artificially low. If you take commercial pricing, it's closer to 2-3 years.
India is clearly different to the West in this regard; a typical installation in the UK is much smaller than 10kW, more in the 3-5kWp range, and you're looking at £6000 installed without a battery, and over £10,000 with a battery (circa 10kWh).
A 10kWp installation with a battery will easily cost you £15,000-£20,000, with an annual energy bill of ~£2000 it's easy to hit 7-10 years ROI.
To put some numbers to my specific case, my 7kWp system with 12kWh battery was ~£13,000 in summer 2025, and about 55-60% of the cost came from scaffolding and labour.
I DIYd this with permits and interconnect in the SF Bay Area. I’ve had no power bill for years now, and I have two hot tubs.
Panels and enphase on Craigslist are so cheap you don’t have to worry about it. Max out what you’re allowed with your main electrical panel size and you’ll never regret it. Don’t even consider doing less than the maximum. You will never meet anybody who believes they added enough solar after a year of ownership
Use second-hand panels, hire a contractor to install them, and another contractor to then install and connect batteries and an inverter. Ignore the possibility to sell energy back to the grid, charge your batteries instead.
Now, you would have built not a cutting-edge system, but a relatively inexpensive one, with a minimum of red tape and financing shenanigans.
That's still 150% higher than the wholesale price overseas, and maybe if paying someone to install an appliance costs 9× more than the appliance does, you should think about doing it yourself.
Oh yeah, DIY is the way to go. But even for a DIY project the other stuff you need -- inverters, batteries, optimizers, mounts, wiring, transfer switch -- will end up being the majority.
Maybe you should figure out how to do without some of it. You don't need MPPT optimization if buying more panels is cheaper. You don't need much battery if you run the washer in the daytime and use thermal storage to heat or cool the house at night. You don't need a transfer switch if you don't connect the solar to the grid outlets. You don't need inverters if you run things on 48V DC, which also greatly reduces the safety risks of wiring problems. I think Joey's house has DC appliances, though I don't remember.
What is the safety benefit of 48v? I am not an electrician, but I just finished diy/installing a 48v system, and when I was doing some research I read the opposite. 48v is *cheaper* since you don’t need as thick wires, but *more dangerous* since it has a higher chance of arc faults and the voltage is sufficiently high that it can cross the skin barrier and kill you.
Though all three are pretty safe as long as you buy the appropriate equipment, and take reasonable precautions when installing it.
DC has a higher danger of arc faults than AC, and 48V is enough to sustain a short arc. But 48Vdc has less danger of either shock or arc faults than 120Vdc, and DC has a lower risk of shock than AC, because it still usually can't drive enough current through your skin to kill you. But you are correct that people can and do die from 48Vdc shocks, for example when their welding gloves are soaked with sweat or they're immersed in water.
You need thicker wires with 48V than with 120V or especially 240V, and the higher currents required at 48V can create more risk of fire from overheating conductors, for example in a wire that's too thin or a spring contact in an outlet that's worn out.
Perhaps you are implicitly comparing 48Vdc to 24Vdc, 12Vdc, or 6Vdc, rather than the 240Vac or 120Vac I was comparing it to. Those lower voltages do indeed need even thicker wires and pose even less risk of shock or arc faults than 48Vdc. I think 24V is the minimum to maintain an arc in air at atmospheric pressure, and it's really hard to get one started using a 24V supply; you need a high-frequency start circuit or a substantial amount of inductance in series.
48V is the maximum usually considered safe enough to not require compliance with any kind of electrical code; an expert electrician from North America once told me that it's in a category known to electricians as "bullshit wiring".
> DC has a lower risk of shock than AC, because it still usually can't drive enough current through your skin to kill you
What? Common wisdom is that DC shock risk is worse than AC, as DC makes your muscles clench up and so it's harder to let go of whatever you grabbed. That "120Vac" is actually 170V peak though, which does increase shock risk for equivalent power transferred (maybe this is what you meant?).
No, AC also makes your muscles clench up, and it's even worse. At a given RMS voltage, AC is both more painful and more dangerous as a source of shocks. Edison was kind of right about that.
It's complicated, though. If you're running a low-level current through your body for a long time, like in the neighborhood of a milliamp, DC is much worse because it migrates your electrolytes around. And if you're using metal electrodes it might be migrating the metal from the anode into your body. So TENS units are strictly AC, with no DC bias permitted.
I'm still trying to understand if you're saying AC itself has a greater shock risk, or if you're merely commenting on peak vs RMS. For safety terms I personally think of AC voltages as their peak voltage, because I consider it a bit ridiculous to model myself as a resistive load being heated - meaning I consider my house wiring here in the US as being 170V. And I would consider (a stiff source of) 170V DC more dangerous in all respects, but perhaps I am wrong?
You may be right that the higher peaks are the reason sinewave 120Vac RMS is a heftier shock risk. Or it might also be the fact of being AC, in the sense that a square wave inverter output with 120V peak and RMS voltage maybe is more dangerous than 120Vdc. I don't know if it is or not. I could make up reasons that it might be, like maybe it's harder for neurons to adapt to, or maybe electrolyte depletion near the electrodes increases the body's resistance, but I don't have any evidence.
There really are some shock risks that result from your body being heated as a resistive load, like internal burns, but those are not at the top of the list, especially at only 120Vac.
IIUC AC current causes your muscles to twitch. This means that can cause you to be unable to let go of e.g. a live wire, fall off a ladder, or disrupt your heartbeat.
The most practical version of this is a DC solar-heat pump setup, but the number of people that would choose that over a more complex solution is limited IMO.
That's still a lot higher than what I paid in SE Asia 2 years ago. I got new 550w panels delivered for $65 each.
And of course installation is incredibly cheap here. $50 total in labor for 10 panels on a quite high roof. I don't remember the costs of the mounting hardware, but it was reasonable as well.
I didn't downvote you, and wouldn't if I could! I can't downvote my direct replies.
As for being "wrong," you're insisting that there's a narrow definition of a term when in general practice it is not used that way, and where the current usage causes zero confusion. You may be trying to change usage, but telling people "you're wrong" when they are not is not a convincing way. Showing that the existing usage of terms causes confusion might me more convincing, but it's hard.
I've wanted to install home solar for years now. It's difficult in my area. At first, the salespeople would ghost me after learning I didn't want or need financing. Then they lied about waived connection fees for use of a battery to sell power back to the utility during evening peak hours. Then the Federal incentives vanished. Now... the tariffs.
So our approach is to remain in the bottom 2% of electicity consumption for our area.
Stability in government is something we don't appreciate until it's gone.