Chinese Solar Panel Prices

The cheap panels have one use, and that isn't really RV related. I can "buy cheap, stack deep", and use those for adding light and electricity to places like backwoods sheds and such where even having a single car battery's worth of electricity can be handy, if only for lighting or recharging low-draw items.

When talking to one of the owners of Navajo solar, he said to expect increases in just about everything right down to the raw materials due to the tariffs. Since he wont be getting subsidies from the Chinese government to cover those tariffs, his prices will be going up. The biggest hurdle is that they can't grow the crystals to make the wafers here, they must be imported. Cost was the biggest reason they were for poly instead of mono, better production in less than idea conditions was a side effect.

The pod cast said vaguely what I read a while back that the Chinese government subsidized a bunch of solar panel factories, too many in fact. Once the glut of panels dropped prices too far, they cut back on the money and see which of the factories would sink or swim. This led to cost saving measures like lower quality or even untested materials that you may not see the result of for years.

I believe that is why I saw "white sheet" panels while I searched for my new polys. The seller claims they are made by Trina but were not worthy of a brand name or warranty. Decent price at $225 for 300w but will they last or produce like a name brand panel, only some fool like me that would do side by side testing would see and my testing days ended when I pushed the bank too far and saw 18.5a out of one of the 250w polys. At $170 a panel, who needs to buy white sheet or even grade B panels.

So between subsidies and cost cutting measures, Chinese panel prices may go even lower but it may be a case of getting what you pay for.

Here's an NPR podcast from last week on how solar got so cheap. April 10th, 16 minutes worth.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money