I have an existing business and would like to start a company installing/manufacturing solar panels. Creating solar energy interests me also.
I would like to know any info on starting a business that manufactures and installs solar panels. From residential homes to solar panel fields.
Manufacturing photovoltaic panels is probably out of reach for you if you’re inquiring on Yahoo Answers. Manufacturing on a scale that can actually make money, to get a manufacturing cost below $2/watt, requires hundreds of millions of dollars. There are only a handful of companies in the world today that are profitable at it. The standard warranty for solar panels is 25 years, although there are some 20-year companies. The panels must be well made.
There are sites that tell you how to make your own solar electric panels, or some that will even try to sell you the information, but every one of those I’ve seen is really just a hobby-type project that doesn’t harvest any significant energy.
I don’t know much about the large installations, other than they seem to go to a small handful of companies. The companies must be of sufficient size to have a proposal writing specialist on staff, and also large enough so that a single project doesn’t consume the majority of the company’s business. A city that wants 1 MW of panels for a stadium wants to deal with a company that isn’t staking its life on the deal. What if such a company went under while the project was midway? Possibly, these companies started out as residential installers, or were spinoffs from other companies with capital.
In California, I believe you need a C-10 contractor’s license to install photovoltaic, which is like a journey electrician, plus knowledge of roofing, plumbing, and a few particulars of solar. I’m not sure what the licensing process is, but there seem to be small installers cropping up all the time, giving the best deals. I think this is where the money is to be made, a small installer with low overhead.
Info about building solar panels can be got very cheaply through Earth4Energy – it might be something you do yourself, or added value thatyour business offers. Visit my website to connect through.
Well, learning how to build them is a good step. After you do that you then manufacture them as cheap as possible, buy some advertisement and your on your way to owning a solid business.
I built my own panels, not the prettiest but they work good enough. Still, commercial panels give out more juice then mine, but the price per watt is what I was after. Building my own I pay 2cents per watt.
Do that and you will have a great product to sell. This is the site I went to, hope they can help. Good Luck! Lemme know if you take off.
http://solarpower.vio-solutions.com/
My husband has been an installer of Solar pool heating and Solar Hot Water heaters, and other things with solar for about 5 years now, we are also looking to open our own solar company, the requirements here in florida are that you have been in the solar field for 4 years and 1 year as a supervisor, then you have to buy all the books (12 in total) and stufy them and take an Exam to actually be able to get your license, so if you want to open the business doing solar you have to know solar but while i was looking into it i noticed it said "You can also substitute up to three years of college credit hours for experience." and the college credits do not need to be construction related, i guess the best thing to do is type in yahoo "Solar license & the state you live in because each state has their own requirements! one thing is the company my husband works for, they pay about $1,800 for material and sell the systems for about $9,000, so theres money to be made!! good luck and let me know how it goes!