Starting this week, SolarTown will offer a discount solar panel of the week. Every week on Monday, we will post a solar panel that offers great savings. This year, our distributors and vendors have been offering huge savings on solar modules as prices have continued to fall. And they offer to SolarTown discounts, which we are able to pass on to our customers. Some of our customers are most interested in the least expensive solar module that they can purchase. For those installers and contractors who are ready to purchase immediately, the discount solar module of the week will allow them to take advantage of deep discounts that are available while supplies last.
Posts Tagged ‘Discount Solar Panels’
Discount Solar Panel of the Week
Monday, August 15th, 2011Are All Solar Modules the Same?: New Factors Distinguish Panels
Monday, April 11th, 2011
The debate continues whether solar modules are essentially fungible commodities or whether they are subject to differentiation. We at SolarTown come down firmly on the side of differentiation among solar panels, but we recognize that there is another side of the story. We have heard from many installation companies who tell us that cost is the primary driver in their decision to purchase solar panels for installation. We have started to hear from manufacturers who are betting that consumers will pay more for home solar panels for an improved product. You may be able to get a superior solar module for less than a 10% premium—now seeing that you may have these solar panels on your home for 25 years, we think that this premium is a price worth paying.
Solar Module Oversupply is Good for Homeowners
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011An investment analyst calls SolarTown, inquiring about trends in the solar panel market for 2011, particularly the supply of modules. It reminds me of the study I heard about in business school that if you ask 100 of the leading economists whether interest rates will rise or fall, 42% will get it right. You can pay a lot of money for analyst reports, but with the solar energy market expanding rapidly and incentives seemingly changing day to day, it is hard to predict supplies. That has been a challenge for us, especially last year, but we think that we did well by our customers to secure modules at good prices.
The Year for Solar In 2010—and Looking Ahead
Friday, December 17th, 2010
These are some of the highlights of the year gone by and an outlook of things to come for 2011. The solar industry has waited to find out what would be the fate of the Treasury Grant program. If you haven’t tuned in for this debate, this development is very good news for the renewable energy industry. The solar industry had another stellar growth year. A recent report predicted that the industry will grow as much as 22% in 2010, when all of the numbers (modules) have been counted. The one gnawing issue is that the solar industry is quickly becoming a Chinese industry, as even today the Chinese own 66% of world production. It was a better year to put home solar panels on your roof than investing in solar stocks. Morningstar says that solar investors “could be in for a rude awakening come 2011.” The biggest change in the industry came with the micro-inverter. Sure, solar panel efficiencies improved, which means more output for the buck, and the price of PV came down, but the biggest change in the industry came with the industry acceptance for residential PV installation of the micro-inverter. Enphase is no doubt the market leader, but there are many, many wanabees and the competition for micro-inverters will heat up in 2011. The other major shift we saw in the industry is that regardless of whether the homeowner gets a micro-inverter, the homeowner almost invariably wants to get monitoring of the solar energy system.
Discount Solar Panels Rock!
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
I take no pride in writing this blog post about discount solar panels because no matter how hard we try to persuade our customers to look past cost, by and large, they are not convinced. In the last several months, the single most important criterion for our customers in purchasing home solar panels is price. There are numerous ways to differentiate solar modules. We have even introduced a solar panel comparison to alert you to significant differences in the panels that we sell. Of course, the essential difference is expected output, and you will want to look at efficiency and the PTC rating (PVUsa Test Conditions) to come up with an estimate of what your solar panels will produce over the life of the panels. There are other parameters that you may want to consider, such as size and weight. Aesthetics, that is the look of the panels, is no small matter if you live in a trendy area and your southern facing roof is visible from the street. But as we have been looking at the results from the past several months, we have noticed one unmistakable trend: our customers love low cost panels.
SolarTown Offers Solar Module Comparison
Thursday, October 14th, 2010
The choices for home solar panels are dizzying. If you are an installer or a DIYer, you may simply look at the price. And many of our customers are only interested in the bottom line: what is the lowest cost per watt? But there are some other critical specs that may affect your decision of which panel to purchase. We want to make your decision easier and are offering a new feature on SolarTown: Solar Module Comparison.
Choose Your Home Solar Panel System with SolarTown
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010We have had increased interest from those wanting to manage their solar installations. Some of those who have contacted SolarTown are handy around the house and fashion themselves as DIY solar installer. Some are simply taking an active role in managing their solar installations. They are not the type to get on a roof, but they are ready to hire a roofer and electrician. And then there are plumbers or electricians who are making the transition to the solar installation business and need our assistance. All of these folks are people who now make up the SolarTown community. They are interested in working with SolarTown to choose solar energy systems. If you fall within one of these categories, we can help you, too. We have a lot of online resources to assist you. We also have technical customer assistance to guide you through the process of installing your own solar energy system. In this blog entry, we want to demystify the process of how SolarTown can help you succeed with your solar energy project.
Installing a Solar Energy System on Your Home
Friday, April 9th, 2010There is nothing like the fresh air and sunshine of spring to focus the mind on the new solar project you want to install on your roof, in your garden, on your pathways, or near your pool. We hope that you have read the learning article about the installation challenges that our solar engineer faced down during the installation of his home solar panel system. We enjoyed watching his journey as he went from the design stage to installation. In this blog entry, we discuss three major decisions that he faced: designing the system, choosing the solar module, and choosing the solar inverter.
Choosing your solar design. As with any home improvement project, the advance work is the key to the success of your solar energy system. You need to design your system, knowing that these home solar panels will be on your roof for the next 25 years. Even an experienced solar installer like our solar engineer may go through several alternative designs before settling on the optimal one, because every rooftop is unique. You need to take into account what conditions may influence the design. Every roof has a different configuration and different obstructions. When our solar engineer was conceptualizing his design, he originally intended to install more panels, but eventually changed the configuration and opted for a design with fewer panels.