How to Get Cheaper Solar Panels and My Lessons Learned from My Local Market

in #tribesteemup5 years ago


Good evening my fellow steemians, I wanted to share some of my lessons learned when buying and selling bulk panels. I first learned about doing this from reading materials from Ben Peterson. He built a how to guide for creating a low cost solar station with ideas in there on how to reduce the cost of your solar project.

His suggestion was to go in with a friend on the purchase of bulk panels. When you buy in quantities of 20-26 panels you get the best deal. You can find panels this way that will cost you from $.43-$.53/watt and when you add the freight cost which could be from $280-$350. Depending on weather or not you have access to a loading dock. It's around $280 if you have a friend or relative that works for a company that may have one.

One of my major lessons learned from doing this on a local level was that you need to find the best deal you can on Grade A New Panels! You want to have a guarantee from the wholesaler that the panels come with the manufacturer's warranty. These panels can be sold for a profit to help pay for the panels you wish to use for your project, but they need that warranty to make it worth the investment for people looking to start a project.

You can buy what are called grade B panels which are used panels that may have scratches/dings, mainly cosmetic issues, but otherwise check out electrically. This was my mistake on the previous panel purchase. The purchase was for grade B panels which were a hard sell for people that wanted to start a solar project.

What I've learned is that there is a high demand locally for the cheaper panels, but people are looking for smaller systems like a kit, for RV's, Off grid cabins, Out buildings, Tiny Houses.

I reccomend anyone that is interested in starting your own project to go out, and buy a pallet. Test the market in your area. Make sure to ask and verify the new Grade A panels with the manufacturer's warranty to make the buy more attractive, and keep the cost under $1/watt for your selling price.

Here are some of the leftover panels I received from working on my Surthrival trailer project.

The most success I've had for selling the panels locally came from Facebook marketplace.


Creating a small demonstration system really helped me show the capabilities of the panels, and gave confidence to people when making their decision to buy.

This is now my strategy moving forward. Providing 3 tiers of systems 100wH LiFePo4 battery mppt charge controller with 120 Watt portable panel and 400watt Inverter, 2.4kwh AGM battery mppt charge controller 660watt panels 1.5kW inverter, 10kWh AGM or wet cell battery 2.64kW panels mppt charge controller and 4kW inverter and offering consultation/installation services.


Here's the simple system I've used with a 100 watt panel to maintain the charge for a 12v winch battery.

Thanks for your time if you checked out my post! I hope this may help you if you are looking into becoming more self-sufficient and producing some of your own power!

Holler at me if you're interested in solar, and are looking for some resources.

No Fear, Take Chances, Peace and Joy,
Greg @makinstuff

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Love your solar projects, and thanks for the info on buying. One day I want to power my whole house, but for now ill just do little water pump projects with my single panel.

hello greg i am not available for this saturday but the saturday after that if yiu are still interested to interview me will be fine although i dont know much about computers and it might be a big pain in the ass for you to walk me through what i have to do to make this happen
if youve got the patience i will have the time the saturday after this one
have a great day man

i buy all my panels on pallets
and have a kw bergey wind turbine and volts storage system and never in use for a generator
how have you been nutritree
i havent seen your posts for a while good to hear from you
also have a hot water solar thermal system installed
you wouldnt be interested in a offgrid survuval property would you lol
400 ft on lake huron and 20 acres
great hunting fishing and survival property
have a great night and cheers

You're a legend! Love what you have going on and would love to interview you on my show every Saturday from 11am-1pm Central time. Give me a reply to this comment if you're interested.

sorry makin stuff i thought it was nutritrees post but he reesteemed you lol
good article bud

No worries good sir, you sound like you get it.

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Do you also buy used solar panels at all, or do you find those aren't worth the hassle and it's better to buy directly from wholesalers like this?

Thanks to @paradigmprospect, this post was resteemed and highlighted in today's edition of The Daily Sneak.

Thank you for your efforts to create quality content!

Ahh awesome! My first 2 bulk buys were for grade B type panels. They are a bit of a hassle to sell on their own. However The best situation would be to get a group together and make a purchase. I am thinking about producing a few kits and seeing how well they do. It's ok if there used I just didn't get enough information in the beginning. It'd be easier to sell if you have a lot of data. Ask a lot of questions i.e. how long were they fielded? Can you give me the date of manufacture? does the company still support the panels warranty?

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