With the prices of electricity rising and people starting to look at ways to reduce their reliance on the utility companies, not to mention their bills, many are turning to alternative energy sources. One way of doing this is with solar power and by installing solar panels in your home. Some people decide to build their own panels, and have discovered that they can say “DIY Solar Panels Electricity for free”.

You may think the idea of building your own solar panels is beyond you, but you may be glad to know you could build a solar panel in a day, with basic DIY skills, no specialist tools and materials you can easily find in the average hardware store. So in one day you could be creating electricity to power appliances in your home.

Naturally you can't just jump into this project, time spent at the beginning, planning the project is time well spent and could save you money in the long run. First, you need to estimate how much electricity you require to run your home. If you plan only to supplement your power needs, that's fine. Then just calculate the percentage you want to offset.

Those numbers will allow you to estimate how many and what size of solar panels you need. Once you have this number it's a matter of simple arithmetic to match the area of your south-facing rooftop section to the number and size of modules that you need. In the beginning you will really just build one panel that might power a couple of appliances in your home. Once you have built one panel it is a relativity easy task to build and connect another panel into the system, and so increase the ability to create your own electricity.

I am sure you have noticed that the sun doesn't shine all day every day. It's dark at night, obviously and rain and heavy cloud cover will also reduce the amount of electricity your panels can create. So if you are planning in going completely 'off grid' will want a battery storage system. If you just want to supplement your electricity supply you could still draw power from your local utility company during these times. Please remember that most municipalities will require that you have your system inspected and approved even if you go entirely off grid. They need to ensure that it's implemented in a way that's safe for local lineman. During power outages they have to assume there's no power running through the lines. Your system has to be installed in a way that guarantees that.

One place to learn all the in's and out's to build your own solar panels, is from the manuals you can find on the internet. Many will include full details and photographs of all the steps you need to take to build the panels, the best will include videos that you can watch in your own time. Another option you should look for is a complete list of tools and materials you need to lay your hands on.

Hopefully you now have an idea on how to start and where to go to build your own solar panels, so you can start to produce your own environmentally friendly electricity. This may be the start of your journey to entirely live of the grid.