Even if you are building your own solar panels which is going to save you a lot of money, there are ways that you can reduce your costs even further and get really cheap solar panels.  Knowing where you main expense is and finding cheaper components is the way to go.

Solar Cells Cost the Most

When you are building your solar cell array, you will want to have as many solar cells in it as possible because the more cells you have, the more energy it will produce.  Solar cells, however, are the most expensive components of your panel construction and finding cheap solar cells is an art.  If you know how the cells work, then you’ll know that even ‘broken’ or ‘misshaped’ cells will work just as well.  They don’t however look very pretty, so if you decide to use ‘broken cells’ you might not want your panels facing the road.

The best places to find second hand and broken cells is through online auction sites such as Ebay and others.

You can also approach companies that manufacture solar panels to see if they have any broken cells they are willing to sell off in bulk or alternatively you can research for broken panels that are being sold privately in the classifieds.

With a growing market of people building their own panels, it is not easy to find cheap solar cells, but the advantage of such a huge interest in the market is that the cost of buying solar cells at the hardware stores is coming down.

Cheap Solar Panels Through Incentives

Although incentives don’t make the cost of building your solar panels any less, they will allow you to reclaim on tax and in some areas you can actually get rebates and incentives that will cut the cost of your solar panels down by up to 80%.

The best places to look for this information are through the www.dsireusa.org site.  Other sites of interest are Energy Star and the IRS Goverment Site.  All these sites explain exactly what the government if prepared to offer by also look at your local council for incentive plans that are based in your area.