For example, let’s take a look at how one company, GreenDIYenergy, sells its product.
The basic idea here is that they’re hoping you get so excited about the idea of generating “practically free” power that you won’t pay attention to what they’re actually promising. Which isn’t as much as they’d like you to think.
The sales page starts with a typical persuasion technique: make you think the alternative is really expensive.
A few years ago I started looking into solar energy. Just like you, I started with an online search on how I could save money with solar electricity.
I was shocked to see how much it cost to have solar panels installed at my house. The estimate I got was over $35,000 and the pay back time for that was just way too long. I didn’t have that kind of money, not even close. I was resigned to the idea of paying the electric company each and every month until I met a friend who had a solution. My friend explained that he was building his own solar panels and for just a fraction of the cost of new retail solar panels.
The author has anchored the price in your mind at $35K. By this time you’ve already read the headline that says you can build a solar panel for less than $200.
But he doesn’t say how many panels were included in that bid. There are two things to consider here. One is that the cost quoted was for the entire system, including the necessary equipment to put the panels on the roof and connect the system to the electrical grid, and it included installation. Probably $20,000 of that was for panels and the rest was for labor and other equipment.
At an estimated $7 per Watt (prices are actually lower than this now), $20K of panels should be 2,800 Watts of potential power.
The panels described in this project turn out about 100 Watts, so you need 28 panels at $200 each. Cool. That’s only $5,600. Much cheaper than $20K.
But it doesn’t include the value of your time. One free guide to building solar panels estimates it takes 12 hours to put together a panel (a lot of this is soldering the cells together). 12 times 28 is 336, or 8.4 40-hour work weeks.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a whole lot of time. What’s your time worth? Everyone is different, but let’s call it $15. Because if you went out and worked instead of tinkering with 28 solar panels, you’d get paid that much. That’s $5,040. Could be a lot more if you get paid well.
So now we’re up to $10,640, or about half the cost.
And yes, it’s absolutely true that this is “a fraction” of the cost you’d pay retail. 1/2 is a fraction. So is 4/5 or 9/10.
Of course, there are many ways to think about your time. For example, you could flip this all around. Let’s say you’re willing to spend $35,000 on a complete solar power system. You can make the panels for half price (even though it will take over a year of working 5 hours per weekend) and if you buy the necessary electronics at a discount and build and assemble your racks and wiring yourself, you could do that for half price as well. So you might be able to have a complete system put together for $17.5K instead of $35. It’s possible to convince yourself that you’re actually MAKING $17.5K by building your system yourself.
Now, I’m not sure I’d go that far. Please tell me your thoughts in the comments.
Oh, and please don’t make plans based on the numbers I’ve shared here. They’re just ballpark estimates. You’ll need to do your own research to figure out what’s true for you.
Check out green diy energy. I’ll be posting more about their sales letter (which actually makes some great points) in future posts.
