[irq-1]

> CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years

$16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home

That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.

[solarpunk]

That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota.

The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.

[ben_w]

6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home.

Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price:

https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola...

And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents.

The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and fly back with it, than to buy local — and now the US is having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized luggage).

(Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as small ones… but usually that makes big things cheaper, not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).

[vel0city]

That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up?

The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.

[ben_w]

> I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up?

Well, the USA is one of the few places left that still uses that, so you could…

But even without that, the linked product is the kind of thing two untrained people can do 95% of the installation in an afternoon, with the rest being a trained professional checking the wires and doing the final connection to the grid.

If this was done in a place that already has nearby grid access:

8 h * {$25/h unskilled labour} + 0.5 h * {$50/h electrician} = $225 per one of those, assuming you're doing enough of them to hire at full time rates not contractor rates.

And that's a car port, it isn't designed for optimal installation time.

If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here, which is still cheap enough that you could do each of those on an entirely separate new not yet connected plot of clear land at domestic rates and still be cheaper than the quoted example in the USA.

[vel0city]

Electricians in my area charge a good bit more than $50/hr. More like $100/hr. And its not going to be for a half an hour, it'll be a few hours.

And that's a car port kit, its a lot simpler to install than installing on a roof of a potentially multi-story house with a steep incline.

It is also completely excluding an inverter and all the additional wiring materials needed to connect it to your house or the labor of modifying your home's wiring. Its literally just the panels and a frame. So add another ~$2k to your prices here, at least. So really more like $8k for materials.

> If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here

Yes, they'll need to tie into the grid, so you're really comparing $18k to $22k and continuing to ignore a lot of labor costs.

Similar prices can be found for just buying panels here in the US as your example link. As someone who has actually looked at solar proposals for an installation on my home, it's not the cost of the panels that's keeping me away from it. It's how much people are wanting to charge to put the panels on my roof, and the fact I don't want to be doing that labor myself at the moment.

[ben_w]

> Electricians in my area charge a good bit more than $50/hr. More like $100/hr. And its not going to be for a half an hour, it'll be a few hours.

At contractor rates.

Hence me saying "assuming you're doing enough of them to hire at full time rates not contractor rates".

That said, I seem to have wildly over-estimated how much electricians get paid, at full-time rates the average in the USA is only $27.79 per hour: https://www.talent.com/salary?job=electrician

> And that's a car port kit, its a lot simpler to install than installing on a roof of a potentially multi-story house with a steep incline.

So do that then.

> So really more like $8k for materials.

You're being ripped off.

You all are.

> Yes, they'll need to tie into the grid, so you're really comparing $18k to $22k and continuing to ignore a lot of labor costs.

No, that's the price if you're putting each pair of these onto its own, new, grid connection.

If you've already got a house, you already have a grid connection.

If you're building a solar park, you share the same grid connection for all of them, you don't put a completely separate connection on each 10 kW because that is a pointless waste of money… but if you did, it would still be cheaper.

[solarpunk]

can one even get that german made solar kit in the usa?