Metal price hikes increasing prices of Solar Panels

We have recently had to increase the price of our Kingspan Solar Panel installations due to a 7.5% price increase which has come into effect on 01 November 2011. This is a regrettable situation all round but is unfortunately a sign of the times we live in. From our conversations with Kingspan about this they have told us that the price increase is mainly due to increased prices in the metal raw materials required to build their solar panels and roof mounting kits. Price hikes on metals, particularly copper, have made it unavoidably more expensive to build these solar panels.

Solar Panels and Aluminium

These price increases on copper and other metals are expected to continue as the costs of mining and processing these resources becomes more expensive. This factor is causing solar panel manufacturers to look to other less expensive alternatives to copper and steel to build their panels. One option is to increase the use of aluminium and we have seen a few of our flat plate suppliers move towards prototype designs using this metal as the main component in their absorbers as well as their casings. Aluminium is a very versatile and recyclable metal so use of this metal will increase the overall sustainability of solar panels as a product allowing for easy recycling when the panels come to the end of their operational life.

Solar Panels made from oil..

Kingspan Solar have another take on this and plan to concentrate more on replicating the design of their new Varisol solar panel which minimises the use of metals in the panel replacing them where it can with high temperature resistant plastic polymers. These polymers are of course oil based so prices will be subject to the availability of that resource in the future. It’s saying something though that one manufacturer believes that oil is a more stable resource as a raw material than copper. One thing is for sure that solar panels have never being cheaper to install in Ireland than now but it is debatable how long this will continue with the great outward pressures of reducing raw material resources pushing upwards at the prices.

Ecologics.