How Much Do Solar Panels Cost For A 1500 Square Foot House?
United States is a leading solar panel manufacturer no wonder why solar panels are becoming widely popular these days and people are opting for them in this age. installing a solar power system at your home is usually deemed an investment, but it can come off as a not-so-exciting endeavor when you throw in the upfront costs.
While your money is going towards keeping your home up to date and energy-efficient, solar equipment can burn quite a hole in your pocket. Add in the cost of installation and miscellaneous associated costs and what you have at hand is a full-fledged expensive home project.
It can be quite daunting to understand the do-s and don’t-s of solar panel installations, and one of the most important queries you’ll be left with is: how much do solar panels cost per square foot?
To provide an idea for an average-sized home, we will be going into detail about the cost of solar panels for a 1,500 square feet house.
We will discuss the various factors we need to consider before jumping. Hopefully, this article will help you gain some insight into the best ways to cut costs and yet have a functioning solar panel at your home.
How Much Do Solar Panels Cost For A 1500 Square Foot House?
As for the cost of installing solar panels for a 1500 sq. ft. home, the estimates run somewhere between $8,000 and $25,000 in the United States. If the range caught you off-guard, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: it is that big a range for installing solar panels at home.
The answer to that lies in the diversity of factors barring the square foot of your house that decides the cost of installation.
The cost of solar panels and the other miscellaneous components can vary greatly. Be it the amount of suitable space available on the roof or particular power requirements, the cost of installing solar panels runs much deeper than you think. But it’s safe to assert that home solar panels cost relatively less when you know what the money is going into and manage it accordingly.
Here’s a rough breakdown of the costs involved in a typical solar panel installation –
Factors That Matter While Considering the Cost
As we discussed, multiple factors play an integral role in determining which solar panels to go for. Most importantly, how big of a hole you will be burning in your pocket following the so-called “investment.” Here’s a look at the primary factors on which home solar panels’ cost depends:
How Much Power You Use Daily
Now that we have an idea of solar panel cost per square foot, the first thing to calculate is the total load wattage for your house. Sounds complicated? It is quite the contrary!
You will need to calculate how much power your household utilizes daily. You might consider opening the monthly electricity bills from your local utility provider, but there’s another way to do so.
Here’s a rundown of a sample calculation you can make on pen and paper:
| Appliance | Running Wattage | Per Day Run Time | Total (in Watts) |
| Television | 100W | 5 hours | 500W |
Why is this important? The price of most solar equipment (including solar panels) is decided based on their respective power ratings, also explained as the amount of solar power it can generate per hour. If your power needs are low, you can shed off a few bucks on the cost of solar equipment.
The Type of Solar Power System
Yet another important factor that decides the cost of solar panels for a 1500 sq ft home is the kind of solar panels you are considering to begin with. Here’s a look at the different solar power systems available at your disposal:
Grid-Tied System
This ensures that you continue to maintain access to the utility grid while still considerably reducing the cost of your electricity bill. So, you spend less money but still retain access to grid electricity whenever required.
They are highly affordable since not much power is required at your house. Lastly, the investment in a costly solar battery bank required to store said solar electricity is also out of the question with this one!
Grid-Tied With Battery
This one operates the same way as the first one (grid-tied systems), except with the additional back of the battery bank.
So picture this: you can draw ample power from the grid and feed power back into the said grid for debates, store the power for use at your convenience, or supply the power to your house directly.
This one happens to be a little more expensive than the straightforward grid-tied systems, but nothing unachievable.
Off-Grid System
For off-grid systems, the solar panels and the miscellaneous associated equipment ought to be capable of meeting all your power needs. Why is that?
Simply because, unlike the former two, here you will no longer have access to the utility grid/ Depending on how much solar energy you require daily, you will need a large scale powerful solar panel array along with a high-capacity solar battery bank which is capable of storing ample power to meet all electricity needs.
They are usually highly expensive systems but note that they eliminate your need to pay any utility company for power needs.
Points to Remember
Here are some pointers you might want to bear in mind before deciding on the type of solar panels you want to install on your home and their cost per square feet:
Where You Live
The cost of installing solar panels for a 1500 sq. ft. home varies from state to state. The good news is that the solar panel price remains fairly steady across state borders. So, the installation might be subject to external factors, but you can have an estimation of how much your solar panels might cost. Nearly every state falls within 50 cents of the $2.96 per watt average.
Your residential location affects your solar savings, but make sure you know the installation price where you live before making up your mind.
Your Roof
Recently, new homes design their roof keeping in mind that solar systems will be installed on them somewhere down the line. However, that is not the general scenario. Usually, when we build our homes, we do not plan solar panels from the get-go.
As the world adapts, so do we. In the process, we might end up with overly steep roofs, flat roofs , skylights, or multiple levels, all of which change the cost of installation. So do take the structure, material of your roof and features of your roof into account!
Conclusion
It surely is difficult to gauge the cost of installing solar panels for a 1500 sq ft home, but we can wager a guess based on our daily power needs calculation. Remember, the tax incentives and rebate systems that federal and numerous state governments offer are not to be overlooked either! So, your total cost might come down drastically, after all, such concessions.
We hope this article helps you understand the estimated price of installing and purchasing solar panels and equipment on an average 1,500 square feet house. All the best for your endeavor, and we hope it will be a success!
