Saving Money with a Do It Yourself Solar Approach

The price of installing solar panels and building a complete solar system varies state by state due to government regulations, tax incentives, and the price of labor. Since Colorado and California are two states that get a lot of sun and have a lot of environmentally conscious residents we've put some resources into helping you understand how installing solar panels in those states can work.

This article and video interview is a collaboration between Solar Power Authority which is based in Northern California and Solar Dave who resides in Colorado. The interview itself took place with a resident of Golden Colorado who worked with a small local installer called Sunspot Solar trying to save money by taking a "Do It Yourself" (DIY) approach




enhanced transcript for visually impaired or those with slow internet connections:

The total cost of the solar power system and materials was twenty two thousand dollars. I ended up spending about another eighteen hundred in permit fees and a structural engineer and four hundred for an electrician, along with several hundred dollars for a guy to come help me out for a couple of afternoons.

Xcel Energy gave me a $16,538 rebate which is a fixed rebate based on the number of kilowatts I was installing, it has nothing to do with how much I paid the permit office or the electrician. My final cost after rebate to install the solar panels was $7,237.

I started my research in solar power systems about one year before I actually installed my own. I went out and got a couple of bids from some of the local solar people both from contractors that my friends had used as well as just searching the internet. While talking to one of the local solar guys, Steve Cross from Sun Spot Solar, I asked how hard it would be to do some of the installation myself and learn along the way. Steve said he definitely supported do it yourself solar installations and I asked him for a second bid which ended up being a lot lower.

I gave Steve my electric bills and said this is how much I think I need to generate and he said I agree and lets do these types of panels 180 Watts each, he said I would need around 19 to 22 solar panels to generate 180 Watts and ultimately we figured out that 21 panels fit on my roof pretty well.

So I went and got all the permit information from Golden Colorado and Excel Energy and began filling it out. Steve came by for a half hour visit one day to help me complete the Xcel application on the internet and after that day he let me email him any more questions I had.

The way it ended up working out is that we ordered the equipment together and Steve dropped it off in my driveway, after that one of his installers came out and helped me for a couple of afternoons to actually carry the panels (since they weigh about fifty pounds) but beyond that I basically put the entire solar rack system on the roof myself.

I think we sketched out on the side of one of the solar panel boxes how they were all going to wire together so that we get three rows of series with seven panels in each series strung together, that way the amperage works out.

I let his installer run the conduit because that is pretty much a one person job and then I paid an electrician to plug it all in for me.