If you’re fed up with high energy costs taking a big bite out of your budget, you can make your own solar panel to help lower electricity costs. While it does require a small investment of your time, your savings will more than make up for it!

Homemade solar cells, or photovoltaic cells, are the first thing you’ll want to construct. In order to construct a solar cell you must first get a piece of copper flashing and place it on an electric burner turned to its highest setting for about thirty minutes. When it is covered with black oxide and has cooled to room temperature, you have to scrub it very lightly under running water to get the excess material off it but leave the Cuprous Oxide coating that you’ve created. Now you will affix it to a pre-selected plate that you will later seal. Also affix a strip of untreated copper beside your treated copper, solder a wire from one piece to the other. You will also need to solder a wire from the untreated copper to connect to your next cell.

After you mount your copper and your solar collector cell, you will fill the receptacle with a mixture of equal amounts of baking soda and water then seal the unit so that it is airtight. Repeat this with each cell that you will mount on your solar panel. You will need about 90 such cells to produce a roughly 5×4 panel that outputs 16 volts. Homemade solar cells can be very time consuming! Don’t be discouraged, though, there are other ways to build your own solar panel if you don’t have the time to invest in homemade solar cells!

You can also make solar panels by buying discarded solar panels for parts. You can find these panels on auction sites, recycle sites where you often get them for free, or in your local classified section of the newspaper or its online edition. After all, you want to make solar panels in order to save money rather than spending weeks on intensive labor! To make solar panels that will help reduce energy costs, you’ll want to use commercial cells that have been discarded. The main benefit of course is that you don’t have to spend as much on copper, saving you a whole lot of money.

To build your own solar panel you’ll take those cells and mount them on a plywood board that you will eventually construct to look like a very shallow rectangular box. Dividing it into three separate sections with another couple pieces of plywood will make it stronger but be sure to drill a hole for each row of cells so that they can be connected. As you make solar panel you’ll wire the cells together then cover the panel with glass and seal it to protect it from the elements.

I can almost guarantee you that when you will notice the dramatic difference in your electricity bills, you will be continuing making your own solar panels.

You might consider the following as a useful resource: Build Your Own Solar Panel

I can just picture you shaking your head and asking yourself, why on earth would you want to build your own solar panel ? Great question.

I can give you several reasons for wanting to make your own solar panel, but two will suffice for now. Firstly, the cost of electricity has become unreasonably expensive and shows no signs of reversing the trend. The second reason is that I want to be prepared for the day when there will be a total blackout in the country.

Ok, I’ll admit that it’s a bit far fetched to imagine a national blackout, but what about a blackout in your town? Do you not think it is possible that an entire town could have no electricity for a whole week. Stranger things have happened, and in these days of terrorist threats, nothing can be ruled out. I sure don’t want to sound alarmist, but I just want to reiterate that I think it’s a very good idea to learn how to build your own solar panel.

Making homemade solar cells is not as difficult as it seems; it is a whole lot of fun to build. You certainly won’t need to be a NASA Engineer to be able to build your own solar panel. The one thing you will need, however, is lots of commitment and perseverance. Are you ready to make solar panel?

Let’s build then:

Ok pop over to your local DIY retailer and get yourself the following items: sandpaper, an electric drill, sheet metal shears, two alligator clip leads, copper flashing and a micro-ammeter that can read up to 50 micro amperes. You will also need some water, an electric stove and a large plastic bottle with a wide mouth.

To build your own solar panel, you will start of by cleaning a piece of copper flashing with some of the sandpaper you bought. Then cut the flashing into a square or rectangular shape using the metal shears. Cut off the top of the bottle to form an improvised bucket, and put water inside it.

The sheet of copper needs to be a size that will fit on to the electric stove, because the next thing to do is put the copper sheet on to the stove (which should be already switched on), and leave it for about half an hour. Let it cool down for another half-hour.

There will be a black coating covering the copper sheet, carefully scrape it off gently under running water. Cut out a second sheet of copper the same size and shape as the first one, and bend it to fit inside the bottle. Do the same with the first sheet of copper.

With the alligator lead, you will then need to connect the first sheet of copper to the negative terminal of the micro-ammeter, while the second sheet is connected to the positive terminal.

Next add salt to the water and make sure all particles dissolve. Be careful that the water doesn’t dip the alligator clips, because they need to be dry.

Place the sheets in the bottle out in the sun and you will observe a gradual increase in charge as the panels generate electrical energy from the sun.

You have just built your first solar panel, and as you have seen it is not that difficult to build your own solar panel. This is just a small experimental panel, though, to prepare you for bigger jobs ahead.

You might consider the following as a useful resource: Make Your Own Solar Panel