Tag Archives: solar panels

Coming Soon to IKEA: Solar Panels

Posted on October 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

IKEA is perhaps best known for flogging flat-packs of unpronounceable but affordable furniture and modestly-priced meatballs, but the Swedish-owned retailer will soon be adding a surprising new item to its UK stores: solar panels. At $9,200 for a pack of 18 panels, the product will be pricier than most IKEA items, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal report. But the company says it’s still cheaper than the prices their competitors charge, and promises buyers they’ll make their investment back in about seven years thanks to lower bills and government incentives, the Journal reports.

Will solar add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisers.com they are forerunners in green and energy-efficient home appraisals.

One IKEA case study of a semi-detached house with a south-facing roof in the UK estimates the panels would generate about $1,200 a year for the owners through savings and subsidies, reports Reuters. “You don’t have to care about the environment and climate change, you can just care about the finances,” IKEA’s sustainability chief tells the Journal. And unlike the company’s bookshelves and desks, buyers won’t have to tackle the solar panels with an Allen key themselves—installation and maintenance is part of the package.

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Solar Power Costs Continue to Fall

Posted on October 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

Lower prices. Solar panels are a sizeable investment, but according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the average national price for a solar electric system is now less than $5 per watt installed. That’s a notable drop since 2009, when prices averaged $8 per watt. Ten years before that, they were about $12 per watt. A small home solar electric system might be 2 kilowatts (kw) — or 2,000 watts. At $12 per watt, the system would have cost $24,000. At $5 per watt, it’s more like $10,000.

Does solar add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com they are the forerunners in green and energy-efficient real estate appraisal.

Federal incentive. You can receive a large federal tax credit for purchasing a home solar electric system. This tax credit — which is available through 2016 — is 30 percent of the price of the system, with no upper limit. So for that same 2-kw, $10,000 system, the cost would now be down to $7,000. (For more information, visit Energy Star.)

Are We On the Cusp of A Solar Energy Boom?

Posted on June 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

The total solar energy hitting Earth each year is equivalent to 12.2 trillion watt-hours. That’s over 20,000 times more than the total energy all of humanity consumes each year.

And yet photovoltaic solar panels, the instruments that convert solar radiation into electricity, produce only 0.7 percent of the energy the world uses.

Does solar add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

So what gives?

For one, cost: The U.S. Department of Energy estimates an average cost of $156.90 per megawatt-hour for solar, while conventional coal costs an average of $99.60 per MW/h, nuclear costs an average of $112.70 per MW/h, and various forms of natural gas cost between $65.50 and $132 per MW/h. So from an economic standpoint, solar is still uncompetitive.

And from a technical standpoint, solar is still tough to store. “A major conundrum with solar panels has always been how to keep the lights on when the sun isn’t shining,” says Christoph Steitz and Stephen Jewkes at Reuters.

But thanks to huge advances, solar’s cost and technology problems are increasingly closer to being solved.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only.

Tag Archives: solar panels

Coming Soon to IKEA: Solar Panels

Solar Power Costs Continue to Fall

Are We On the Cusp of A Solar Energy Boom?

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