What I have have seen over the years is that, because you have to use energy from the electric company to manufacture the solar panel, the final retail price of said panels is crazy expensive. You will need to keep them in service for *decades* before you can see a return on your investment.
What doesn't make sense to me is, if you are the manufacturer of the solar panels, the guy who owns the plant, why on earth don't you use the the first batch of solar panels to free the manufacturing facility from the grid and thus, enabling the plant to produce cheaper panels.
Also, kind of a different/related question... have you ever seen a clear explanation of the process to manufacture a solar cell? All I see is "you can't do it". But I have seen guys on their garage shops building electron microscopes, liquefying hydrogen, making super high/low pressure chambers to experiment with super-critical fluids... in short, I think that, whatever the process is, It could be possible to set up a garage operation to make them if you are savvy enough.
My Opinion? Probably the oil companies own all the patents and manipulate prices to keep people on the oil dependency. I might be wrong, but that's what it looks like.
China was selling them for a lot less then it cost to make. Then everybody figured that out, and was pissed. Solar panel factories using solar panels?! That one made me chuckle.
Here in Louisiana at least, there is some sort of government grant that pays for the majority of the cost of the panels. So once you get them installed, you lease the panels for $60 a month for 10 years, and after those ten years you own the panels. Installation was free and there was 0 up front cost. My Dad works for a company that installs them so he installed ours but that didn't affect our deal, its the same for everyone. So we went from about $250 a month power bill to like $80 a month, including the panels. Plus the company that installed them is coming to optimize the efficiency in our house soon, which should lower the bill a little more. If you live in a state with a similar system to this, then take advantage of it while you can. Also, if we use less power than our panels generate, we get a check from the power company.
That was a very informative video Commissar. The part about using a printer to make the contacts looks very high tech. But just like with printer circuit boards, is possible to do at home (a lot slower tho).
I see they already started with the silicon wafer already made. I found a video about making the silicon wafers, but they also start with an already made silicon ingot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJzHZZD6co
I then tried to search about how to home-make silicon but I ended up in some site about bewb enlargement tech, lol. I guess I need more definition about what a silicon wafer is really made of. :)