Many people are now considering solar panel building as a way to eliminate their electric bills. With very little looking, those considering building a Solar electric system for their home are bombarded with information on how to build a solar panel for $200 or less.

It's not that the products are bad. In fact, I have three different ones that I obtained when I decided to build a solar power generator. Far and away the best of them is Home Made Energy by Bill Ford. But I digress.

The point of this article is to give you, dear reader, the truth about solar power and it's cost. A solar panel is just one component of even the most basic systems. The implications that you can exit the grid by building one $200 solar panel are greatly exaggerated.

The fact is, you can build a solar panel for less than $200. It is very easy to do even for those with little skill in woodworking and electrical. The parts are simple to come by and you can build a good panel on a small budget.

But what good is a solar panel on it's own? Not much, I am afraid. If you built one of 13 volts, you could use it to charge a car battery or power small 12 volt appliances. But even for those small applications you need accessories.

Accessories cost money. Especially if you need to add batteries to power larger home appliances. Here is a short list of what you need to make a $200 solar panel useable:

1) A Charge Controller to protect the batteries from overcharge and extreme discharge. You can get one for as cheap as $20 bucks on eBay, but you may want to save up a buy a good one. The added battery life will more than pay for the extra initial expense.

2) Deep Cycle Batteries, at least one but the more the better. A good one will set you back at least $100. A Group 27 batter with a 160 minute reserve capacity will give about 60 amp hours. Since you will not go below 50% discharge, you will really get only about 30 Amp hours for each one.

3) Power Inverter - you will need a power inverter if you want to use regular 110 Volt appliances. As an alternative, you can get 12V appliances such as frying pans, coolers, and TV's that will run directly from the battery. An inverter will again be about $100 for a decent one.

And that is the minimum you will need to make use of that $200 solar panel. If you add the cost of accessories to the cost of the panel, a good solar power system can be set up for about $500. Even then, it will only be enough to run one of the bigger appliance such as a freezer or refrigerator.

If you want to get into solar energy and solar panel building, set your sites on building a solar generator with the capacity to run your bedroom. By doing that you will learn everything you need to know to build bigger and better systems when you can afford to do it.

There is more to solar power than building panels. You need a complete education in solar power generation, from the ground up. For that, I recommend Home Made Energy. It is the most complete package there is, and well presented.

It's one thing to build a $200 dollar solar panel, and something else entirely to benefit from having it.