This discussion is naturally focused on Western countries but in countries with GDP below $5k, the total cost of 9kwp rooftop solar with battery is less than $10k. Western countries could have this too but it's not allowed due to immigration restrictions and industry regulations preventing tradespeople from flying in and doing it for cheap on your house.
If we are talking about electrical installations flying in is a bad idea because the code / regulations are different in different countries but what would help is making it faster to get a license. In both the UK and the US one needs may hours of apprenticeship (around 10000h AFAIK) so it takes years to get a license. If apprenticeship hours will be reduced and amended with a stricter exam labor supply will increase IMHO.
Someone flying in and mounting something to my roof is just asking for trouble. I would think the gap in expectations (actual and implicit) is just too big. Not mentioning what your insurance will say.
This zero tolerance attitude for problems is the reason it's so expensive (aside from industry lobbying & protectionism). It's better to be pragmatic and allow some level of risk in the name of more sensibly balancing competing objectives (risk vs affordability).
That's not the case when it comes to professional bodies. Tradespeople are similar to surgeons. They use licensing as a tool to restrict labor so their wages remain artificially high and they can parasitically collect economic rents. Getting overseas labor banned is part of this.
I'm not in favor of throwing away all regulations and all licensing, mind you. But some pragmatic rebalancing needs to happen. If I go to India I do not automatically die inside a house with a $9500 solar installation. That'd be much more likely to happen on an American road with its 40000/yr fatalities that everyone casually accepts as a pragmatic trade-off worth having ;)
> They use licensing as a weapon to restrict labor supply
In parts they do, but that doesn't mean that licensing doesn't have a point. They should not be able to limit the licenses but testing and training should absolutely happen. Especially for critical things like electricity.
> If I go to India I do not automatically die inside a house with a $9500 solar installation.
You don't but your chances are higher than a country with enforced minimum standards.
> That'd be much more likely to happen on an American road with its 40000/yr fatalities that everyone casually accepts as a pragmatic trade-off worth having ;)
India’s traffic fatality rate is 12.6 per 100k, which is about the same as the US’ at 14.2. India has a very low car ownership rate, and US a very high one, so I dunno that I’d be so quick to judge in your shoes.
Since we're making ethnocentric assumptions and making comparisons between the USA and India, perhaps our building standards encourage safe public infrastructure?
Perhaps if India was more like the USA, safe road travel would improve - and consequently - their 172k traffic fatalities would fall to a more acceptable level (by the way there are doubts this figure is correct - people speculate it's much higher)?
And before you complain about the population difference, I checked the per capita rates of traffic fatalities. India outpaces the USA by quite a bit.
By the way, this is all an apples and oranges comparison. Building standards has nothing to do with road fatalities.
The problem is not the customer safety, it's the worker's. Look into how things used to be done in the "good old days" and see if you'd be ok going to that kind of job. [1]
Fortunately, most local laws in the US require a permitting process where the installer has to demonstrate licensure and/or bonding, so that someone with a defective sense of risk doesn't get people killed. Happy to pay extra to avoid your scenario.
It's the people who don't have money that are at a much higher risk of injury or death due to improper installation and maintenance. It's a definite trade off we make in the west after large numbers of people suffered from lax safety standards. Simply put, if there is no compulsion to be safe, far too many people wont
/me remembers being on a customer site 5 years ago and watching the owner get material off a high shelf by standing on a pallet held up by a fully-extended forklift.
The other engineer and I just looked at each other and quietly minded our own business :-)
There is a very significant risk of one or more workers falling off the roof and getting killed or injured so badly they can never work again. Do you plan to take that risk and if it happens pay death benefits to the fallen worker's family or cover the medical and disability expenses? Or, to you expect to just say "tough luck" to the worker? Or, will you pay an insurer to cover it?
There is a very significant risk the roof will pierced in a way that it no longer works to exclude water, magnified by using materials & tools not up to standards. Will you take on the risk when the roof fails and leaks, and remove the installation, repair the roof, they re-do the installation? Do you expect the overseas contractors to come back and fix it (and how will you enforce that)? Or, will you require them to follow some established standard to reduce the risk, and/or try to get insurance/warranty to cover the risk?
It is easy and trivial to complain about "excess" regulations, ignoring the fact that many of them were bought with blood and funerals. And yes, some are a pain in the arse, and seem unnecessary for your particular situation. But unless you have actually considered the WHOLE problem, and can post a better solution, it just comes of as immature whinging. So, how do you expect to handle the risks?
Pragmatism would be not worrying about solar rooftops and small-scale solar as an outcome at all. It's cheaper to build solar at large scale, for basically the same reasons associated with scaling up anything else. The primary reason that there has been a boom of small-scale DIY solar is that the energy utilities are so corrupt that random individuals are keeping up with them.
This is a huge part of why solar costs so much more in the USA than in many developing countries. Every jurisdiction in the USA has its own rules and most jurisdictions have very strict safety and permitting (to make sure of safety) rules.
The safety rules do make things much safer but also noticeably increase cost. It’s a tradeoff we as a society have decided is worth it. Maybe at some point we will change that decision and then costs will quickly come down, capitalism is very good at meeting the minimum requirements in order to make sales.
Typical roof mounted installs in the USA are in the $3-4/Watt range, inclusive of parts, labor, and permitting for professional installation. Tax credits and other incentives can reduce this.
Code compliant ground mount installs via DIY are in the $2.75-$4/Watt range, inclusive of all parts and permitting and assuming labor is free but that a licensed electrician is needed for final grid tie. Tax incentives can reduce this. Not needing permits or a licensed electrician also can reduce it. Alternatives such as using wood racking instead of metal is also cheaper but this may violate electric code.
>As of March 2025, the cost of residential solar energy in Australia averaged just AUD $0.90 (USD $0.59) per watt—less than a quarter of the U.S. average.
It's generally attributed to consistent sensible regulation which has created a competitive market and reduced any time wasting paperwork.
In my research this past summer considering solar in the USA, it was difficult for me to find just new with-warranty solar panels in low quantities (I only want 5kW to 10kW of panels) for a DIY install for less than $0.30/W including delivery and sales tax. To hit $0.59/W total cost is mind boggling to me.
In The Netherlands it's €0.90-1.30/kWp for installation of rooftop solar, everything included. Here in Belgium it's maybe 10-20% more I think, no permits required. Neither country have particularly low labour costs.
I know contractors travel for work, but flying in? Wouldn't the cost for shipping all the contractor boxes, renting living quarters, local food, and aircraft fare rapidly eat into the savings? Not to mention the downward pressure on wages this would have...
> it's not allowed due to immigration restrictions and industry regulations preventing tradespeople
US doesn't need immigrants. There is a lot cheaper labor available[1], $7.23 to $14.45 per month. Many companies use this nearly free labor infrastructure[2]. There is no reason solar installers can't train and use them.
Where are you sourcing materials? I was planning my own 11 kWh system with selfsolar.com at $1.50/watt but now think I’m going to buy a pallet of panels from a1solarstore.com at a fifth of the price. Still need to figure out the supports and draft the permit set.
I’m in Denver area and bought panels, rails, and inverter from CED Greentech. They were okay. Apparently they’re having trouble sourcing materials, and have massive demand due to the expiring tax credits. So if you’re thinking of going this route, buy the materials and have them delivered, even before waiting for utility/county permission.
I talked to a local engineer for drafting plans. I didn’t know what I was doing so had to go through 4-5 revisions, which the engineer got frustrated by I think.
