What you must know and do before building a DIY solar PV system for your home, as is outlined below, will be the basis for a a system that delivers what you hoped for. You can avoid some common pitfalls when building a PV solar system for your home by carefully doing the research at the beginning and getting yourself fully prepared.

1. Avoid common pitfalls when building a PV solar system for your home. Get a good start with choosing the right type and size of panels and system components for your particular application. Begin with clearly defining your goal. Will your solar PV system serve a weekend vacation cabin in a remote area? That kind of system is the simplest one and many excellent DIY PV solar kits are available. Do you want a photovoltaic system that covers between 30% and 70% of your electric needs? These systems can range from simple (no battery storage) to fairly involved. The king of the systems is the one that will get you off the grid when you are done with the solar PV installation for your home. This option will require you to have a considerable battery storage to bridge overcast and rainy days.

2. Have you minimized the electric demand of your home? PV panels and batteries are not cheap. You don’t want to spend money on extra PV panels. Here’s what the numbers look like: Photovoltaic panels produce between 6W to 19W per square foot. Estimated prices for just the panels range from $3.0 to $5.0 per sqft.. This is based on reviewing available pricing today. It could be higher or lower . With these numbers and looking at substituting one 60W incandescent light with a 12W LED light, can lower the panel price for your DIY PV project by$7.50 to $40.0. So if you replace five 60 W incandescent bulbs, you could potentially save up to $240, just for the panels. Replacing incandescent lights with LED lights is just one way to reduce your electric demand. You can also: shut of lights and unused equipment, install motion detectors and/or replace inefficient appliances with highly efficient appliances.

3. Take out your calculator for step 3. Or you can use one of the many free online tools to calculate how much sunlight, preferably direct sunlight, the PV panels will receive at the location where you plan to put them. You can also ask a PV panel manufacturer if they could do those calculations for you. Whatever option you choose, you will need to make allowances for trees and/or neighboring houses that might throw shadows on your PV panels.

4. To help you finance your system, you can still take advantage of federal tax credits for solar photovoltaic systems and maybe even use the state tax credits for solar systems. And to top it off, in many states you can find utility incentives for solar systems. It is also important to find out what you must do to be able to have your electric utility meter spin backwards so you can sell electric power back to the utility when you are not using it. Some utilities also require special equipment to be put between their meter and your solar system.

5. Finally, educate yourself. Most likely you have never before planned, designed and installed a solar PV system. Others have. Learn from their mistakes; don’t repeat them. Many videos and books are available. And like with everything else, some are very good, some are not very useful. Spend some time at your local library or the bookstore and peruse what’s on the shelves. Attend a class at a local community college. Research solar PV systems online. The government’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site (www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/) has tons of very useful information. I also recommend investing in a set of how-to videos about DIY solar system installations.

Get ready for the fun part. Making it real. Look at all the notes and books, and maybe videos that you have studied. You can move forward ,knowing that you are well prepared. What you have learned will help you to work with a PV panel manufacturer or supplier to select the perfect DIY solar PV system for your home.

Before you start a DIY solar photovoltaic system for your home, do the 5 steps and learn about the secrets of how to successfully build your own solar photovoltaic system.