Why is Solar so cheap in Germany?
I was just poking around looking for the cost to buy solar panels for my house and ran accross an interesting article. In Germany it is far cheaper to install solar panels than it is in the US.
In 2011, residential solar system installers paid a little over $1.80 per watt for solar panels in both Germany and the United States. In Germany, installers added $1.20 to the cost of the solar panel to complete an installation. But in the U.S., they tacked on $4.36 per watt, more than three times as much
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That’s right, the panels cost the same, the installation is where the difference is.
There are a number of things going on, and the article makes for an interesting read. But one bit is that in the US companies spend 10 times as much to find customers. For what I read as red tape, Germans pay 3 cents a watt, Americans pay 20 cents a watt!
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re: #3 Kdizzle
And more rational. My point being that private industry in the USA has no goal other than their short term profit. Germany has a long term policy to have 20% of their energy in renewable form by 2020, if I recall. In the USA this is is socialism and dirty energy.
Frank says: