Originally published on Green Building Elements.
The cost of going solar can be reduced significantly by pooling multiple residents’ money to purchase everyone’s’ solar panels at once to enjoy quantity discounts, due to the large quantity of panels purchased under these solar group purchases. However, is it possible to reduce the cost even further?
Solar panels live high up on the South roof of Eagleyew, where the plants on the living roof also soaks up the sun.
Image Credit: Kata Polano.
Yes. The cost of installing rooftop solar panels is extremely high, even higher than the cost of the solar panels.
One approach to lowering contractor fees, is to make contractors compete with each other. If you are only one resident, and you tell a contractor that you will let them do it if they offer the lowest price of all to install your solar system, they may heartily laugh in your face (or not, it is worth a try, and it actually does work sometimes; you would be surprised at how often you can get discounts by simply asking).
Apart from that, if you arrange a solar group purchase to furnish many homes with solar panels at once, such as 80 homes, for example, you can approach contractors, get quotations (after letting them know that you are going to many others for the lowest quotations).
After this dialogue, you can choose the lowest quotation, or continue negotiation via quote comparison so they try to beat each others’ prices. They want the business, and you would be a very important “customer” to them.
Follow me on Twitter @Kompulsa.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Electrifying Industrial Heat for Steel, Cement, & More
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
