Who hasn’t heard of solar panels? As a current hot topic, I think we all have, right? We’ve all seen them on people’s houses or even environmentally conscious businesses here and there. They are the basic building block of harnessing the suns energy to provide electricity for your home. But how much do solar panels cost?

The honest answer is: it depends on what you are looking to use solar power for and how much you’re willing to invest in a solar panel system. You can spend thousands of dollars having solar panels professionally installed on your home and hardwired into your current power supply if you have the spare money. Or, if your handy with a few tools and can follow simple directions you can build your own.

If you’re serious about converting your home to solar power and don’t want to have do anything but enjoy the efforts of generating your electricity I’d suggest you use a professional. It can cost up to $20,000 depending on what area of the country you live in but a professional will recommend what types of panels to use, how many you need, where to put them on your property, and will install them for you. If your average electric bill is $200 a month and the system reduces your bill to $50 a month, it would take an average of 10 – 15 years to recoup the costs of your system.

If you’re just dabbling with the idea of setting up a few panels around the house to see how they work you might want to just buy a solar panel kit from eBay (or any other internet site that sells solar panels) that has all the parts and you just plug it in for a few hundred dollars. This would give you a good idea of what to expect from a solar panel in your area.

On the other hand, if you’re the handyman type you can find easy to follow do it yourself guides that will teach you to make your own solar panels for less than $200 per panel. All you’ll need to know is how to use a few simple hand tools, so don’t let the idea scare you. If you go this route, just be sure to find a guide that has simple directions and is easy to follow. I bought a few guides and the one I actually used had videos for each step of the building process so I actually saw what I should do for each and every step.