DIY solar

The pieces are coming together.

Financing, light-weight panels (thin-film), and now, DIY installation from local store.

Solar technology is going where it has never gone before: onto the shelves at retail stores where do-it-yourselfers can now plunk a panel into a shopping cart and bring it home to install.

Lowe's has begun stocking solar panels at its California stores and plans to roll them out across the country next year.

This shows how far the highest of the high-tech alternative energy technologies has come. Solar power is now accessible to anyone with a ladder, a power drill, and the gumption to climb up on a roof and install the panels themselves.

What is interesting here is the scale of distribution (>1,000 stores nationally) and that Lowe's sees a big business opportunity. Home Depot can't be far behind.

It's not clear that paying almost $900 per 40 pound panel (each capable of running about 1 big appliance) is something a really large number of people are going to do (great if they do). But establishing the retail channel in advance of the rapidly declining costs (with China and thin-film coming on fast) is smart.

I'd like to see a panel for under $500, weighing less than 20 pounds, plug & play hardware, and with the financing to put in a full scale system with no up-front cost. If every home in America put up even 1 or 2 panels, that would be huge.

We're getting close.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net