I agree completely, and the best antidote is getting a little knowledge about how home solar works. Something that should be well-in-reach of most of the HN crowd.
A typical grid-tied home solar system has 3 big areas of component costs:
1. The actual solar panels.
2. The thing that mounts the solar panels in place (called racking)
3. The things that turn the solar panel's electricity into electricity that can be used in your home and by the grid. Typically inverters and wiring.
The good news is that you can price this all out yourself, to get an idea of what your system SHOULD actually cost. Then you could theoretically do it yourself, or be a more informed consumer when shopping around to have someone do it for you.
I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I've been planning, revising and tracking prices on a DIY install for the past couple years.
2: For buying actual panels, I like A1 solar. They seem to have the best selection/pricing I've found: https://a1solarstore.com/
3: OpenSolar is a free tool designed for solar installers, but available to DIY'ers. It lets you specify your panels, racking, inverters etc., and then lay them out no your roof or the ground. https://www.opensolar.com/ - It's very likely the tool that the contractors you're getting bids from are using.
The last bit of info I'll share is that in general, microinverters don't make sense from a cost/benefit standpoint. Panels have gotten really cheap, microinverters haven't. You're probably better off adding more panels with a traditional inverter system vs. paying for microinverters to get marginal efficiency gains from a smaller number of panels.
I've did this all and currently installing a ~29kWp solar roof myself here in Switzerland. I will pay less than one third of the costs as when it gets installed via a company.
A typical grid-tied home solar system has 3 big areas of component costs:
1. The actual solar panels.
2. The thing that mounts the solar panels in place (called racking)
3. The things that turn the solar panel's electricity into electricity that can be used in your home and by the grid. Typically inverters and wiring.
The good news is that you can price this all out yourself, to get an idea of what your system SHOULD actually cost. Then you could theoretically do it yourself, or be a more informed consumer when shopping around to have someone do it for you.
I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I've been planning, revising and tracking prices on a DIY install for the past couple years.
Here are some of the resources I like:
1: Unbound Solar is a good resource for ready-to-install DIY kits. Their kits are a good resource for "this just works" - and you can then price out individual components as-needed. - https://unboundsolar.com/shop/solar-kits?product-category=gr...
2: For buying actual panels, I like A1 solar. They seem to have the best selection/pricing I've found: https://a1solarstore.com/
3: OpenSolar is a free tool designed for solar installers, but available to DIY'ers. It lets you specify your panels, racking, inverters etc., and then lay them out no your roof or the ground. https://www.opensolar.com/ - It's very likely the tool that the contractors you're getting bids from are using.
The last bit of info I'll share is that in general, microinverters don't make sense from a cost/benefit standpoint. Panels have gotten really cheap, microinverters haven't. You're probably better off adding more panels with a traditional inverter system vs. paying for microinverters to get marginal efficiency gains from a smaller number of panels.