Solar power can be a great home investment that can not only save you money on your energy bill but also increase the value of your home. But oftentimes people question what the cost of building a solar power system would be. The truth is that there are many variables to take into account when determining the cost of solar power for your home.

To get a far more accurate cost of solar power you need to follow these 6 steps.

1. Determine Your Home Power Consumption

There is a lot of variation between the amounts of energy that each home uses. Typically the bigger the home the more energy it consumes. This is almost always because the majority of home energy use comes from the homes heating and cooling system because the larger the home the more air volume that is required to be heated or cooled. And the more air volume, the harder and longer the furnace has to work to get the job done. So if your home consumes a lot of energy then you can expect the cost of solar power to be higher.

You can easily determine your homes power consumption by getting it directly off of your energy bill. If you are choosing to build a grid tied solar power system then you will want to use the average power. If you are choosing to build an off grid solar power system then you will want to use the peak power.

Your power consumption will be measured in terms of kilowatt hours (kWh). And if you have any trouble locating these numbers on your bill, you can easily call your local power company and get them directly.

2. Find Your Insolation Factor

Another bit of information you will need to determine your cost of solar power is your insolation factor. Insolation is nothing more than the measure of solar radiation or sunlight that a given area receives over a given time frame. This number is completely dependent upon your location

The reason this number is so important is because solar panels only generate maximum power when they are in direct sunlight. The further away from the equator you live, the less direct sunlight you receive which results in slightly reduced efficiency of your solar panels.

Your insolation factor can be easily looked up online and is typically provided in table form.

3. Size Your System

At this point you have all of the information you need to determine the size of your solar power system. But remember that it is not always necessary to size a system to power your entire home. It can still be very effective to power even half of your home with solar power. And you can always set your system up for future expansion.

You can easily determine the size of your system using any good solar power calculator along with the information from steps 1 and 2. The size of your solar power system will be one of the biggest determining factors in the cost of solar power for your home.

4. Determine Your System Type

Once you know how big of a solar power system you want to build, you should determine the type of system that works best for you. For most people, a grid tied system is the best option because it limits the number of costly components and can save you some significant money. Off grid systems are generally more complicated and more expensive.

You also need to determine how to build your system. You can do anything from having a professional install a commercial solar power system to building the entire system yourself by hand. As you can probably imagine you can save a lot more money on the cost of solar power by building your entire system yourself.

5. Determine Your Rebates and Incentives

It is also important to take into account any rebates and incentives that you qualify for which can greatly reduce the overall cost of solar power. Some of these solar energy rebates and incentives can be on the order of thousands of dollars. Once you determine all of your eligible rebates you can subtract this from the total system cost.

6. Do the Math

At this point you have all of the information that you need and the only thing left to do is to crunch the numbers and get your final answer.

Once you determine what type of system you are going to build and how much of it you plan to build yourself, you can more accurately price your system. Once you have more of an accurate price you can then subtract any rebates you are eligible for off the price of the system. This final number is your much more accurate cost of solar power.

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