Price Per Watt: How much will you be paying per watt that your system produces.
Price Per Watt is one of the most common terms for those that work in the solar industry.
This is how we calculate commissions, equipment cost, project management fees, sale origination fees, etc. Bottom line, the Price Per Watt could possibly be the most important term for anyone in the solar industry – worker, business owner, or customer.
You might be shocked to hear it’s also one of the BEST KEPT SECRETS for corporate giants in the solar world. Few, if any solar corporate giants will disclose the price per watt of a solar system in their customer proposals. Why? Simply put, it’s fucking high.
Having a solar company is very simple, you simply need an electrician and a license. There is not a lot of overhead aside from equipment cost and of course payroll. So for corporate giants to be able to stay profitable while staffing a full payroll including marketing, housing departments, roofing departments, solar departments, recruiters, sales forces, etc. they have to sell at a VERY HIGH Price Per Watt.
This is the same for some smaller LLCs that simply want to score a big profit and keep a high price per watt. This is why it’s always good to to ask for multiple quotes from different companies and always ask them for the price per watt. They’ll try to fool you with all sorts of financing deals like no payments for a year or low payments for first 18 months. But the bottom line is the price per watt of your system. If they don’t want to discuss the ppw with you, there’s something they might be hiding! Check in again next Friday for our next tip!
