Will The Price Of Solar Panels Come Down Anytime Soon?

http://www.solardave.com/index.php/will-the-price-of-solar-panels-come-down-anytime-soon-video/
This is my 8th video interview with Erik Bowman Regional Sales Manager of Akeena Solar out of Denver Colorado.

SolarDave: Will The Price of Solar Panels Come Down Anytime Soon?

Erik Bowman: That is an interesting question and I don’t want to create and false expectations of clients, because yes over time as manufacturing ramps up there are companies all over the world making panels. As manufacturing ramps up, as demand increases the prices for panels should drop and it has dropped over time and we predict it will drop in the future.

At this time though the subsides in Colorado cover 50% to 60% of the cost of the system and even at that at cutting the cost at half is now that is even viable verses standard electricity. Even as the cost of the panel drops and what happens historically looking at German New York and California as the models the most mature solar economies in the world rebates drop over time as the cost to install goes down the rebates are there to make it make sense as the technology catches up.

So it will probably be 10 years, that is a total guess you would have to ask people that know more than me before the cost of a solar power system on its own without any subsides make equivalent and viable economic sense. Nobody can predict the future don’t know what is going to happen.

Right now with the rebates in place and you are installing a system that will produce electricity for 30 years at 7.5 cents a kilo watt hour it costs you 11.5 through Xcel right now.

So it is a matter of making a decision to say, I am willing to make a capital outlay up front in order to prepay my electricity at a cheaper kilowatt hour now, verses making increasing rates over time. And a lot of people are making that call.