If that were the only reason, you’d surely be able to find someone who undercut the bloated financed costs and do a straightforward labor and materials install. But no such cheaper options exist

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rootusrootus 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> But no such cheaper options exist

None? Project Solar? The last time I seriously looked at doing rooftop panels, they were significantly cheaper than the door-to-door jerks.

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dalyons 15 hours ago | parent [-]

i did get a quote with them. Its still 3 times (!) the price my parents paid in australia. not exactly apples to apples, but whats going on?

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rootusrootus 13 hours ago | parent [-]

To my understanding regulation explains most of the difference. And it will vary a lot from place to place -- your experience will depend largely on local government policy and what your grid provider requires in order to establish the connection. E.g. locally I'm kinda forced to go with one of the power company's blessed installers. Cha-ching! If I understand Australian regulations, they tend to be more uniform nationally, there is less bureaucracy to drive up costs.

	▲	dalyons 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		california adopted part of australia's regulatory framework - required all counties to adopt an instant online permitting for solar, through a unified portal (SB 379). Didnt seem to help costs much. There's probably more to the regulatory problem than just the permits i guess.

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rtkwe 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends on many factors. If installers are able to fully fill their available time and crews with jobs at the current price and expanding is limited by the availability of new crews high prices could be a stable equilibrium until a) more crews become available/techniques improve to speed up install times or b) demand relaxes and they need to drop their price to find sufficient customers.

There's also other factors like the overall cost being beyond people's willingness to save for when financing is available or the extra value that financed installs can provide the underwriters when they're bundled and sold as a stable income stream like houses were in the mid 00s.

"If it can be done cheaper someone will" is based on a lot of simplifications and assumptions about the market in question.

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rdtsc 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unless there are enough marks for everyone to scam. Then the focus is to extract the money instead of investing in crushing the competition.

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ghusto 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not necessarily. There are little-known monopolies like the eyewear, travel agencies, and cargo fuel (there are many more!) where price fixing like this happens.

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myphpgothacked 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This makes me want to start a solar company.

AI can't take my job then.

One indicator is that third world countries can seem to afford it.

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lightedman 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"But no such cheaper options exist"

Untrue, at Sunspark we sold to both individuals and companies. If you can install the stuff yourself, buying it direct from the manufacturer is ungodly cheap (~330w panels at $80 a piece when I worked there almost decade ago.)

	▲	dalyons 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yeah, ive looked into DIY. As you say, even with tarrifs its pretty cheap to buy the panels and inverters. Which makes the installed cost even sillier, > $15k markup for a 2 day job.

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fatbird 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I call this "the capitalism fallacy": it doesn't exist in the (my) market, therefore it's not possible.

The fallacy is that there are infinite market opportunities but a finite supply of entrepeneurs/business/money to exploit them. Therefore, there are an infinite number of market opportunities that will get passed up for one reason or another.