I wonder if as panel costs goes down, will people start to wire their homes again for 48V DC? You could conceivably run your HVAC and fridges at least off of it, this would negate the need for a larger (more costly) inverter.

It's already getting close to "not really economic" to buy second-hand panels, because people have slightly inflated prices for them, but the way I look at it I get a nice run out to somewhere, have a nice lunch in a cafe, and come back with a couple of kW of panels for about as much as a tank of fuel.

New panels just get cheaper and cheaper and better and better, and you can often find clearance deals on 400W-ish panels for ridiculously low prices.

I've been pricing a PV system recently, and I was surprised at how low the price of panels already is. In most estimates I received the panels itself were less than 20% of the total installation costs. Granted, I am looking at a 3-phase system with plenty of battery capacity. For a more typical household setup with 1-phase and moderate battery capacity that percentage will shift a bit.

In my case the quotes are roughly: 40x430Wp panels (~€4000), 3x (3-phase) inverter/chargers (~€5000), batteries (~€5000), auxiliaries (~€1500), cabling (~€2000), mounting hardware (~€2500), labor (~€5000), planning/permissions (~€1000). So total project price is ~25k, of which the panels are only ~€4000. And that doesn't even count the construction of a utility building to house the batteries and inverters, the EV chargers, etc.

On a side note: I found that battery prices have also dropped significantly already. If you're willing to do some assembly yourself you can get ~15kWh of LiFePO4 for just over €1k.

Also, for those wondering: for my situation the ROI of this setup is expected to be about 5 years. This will be quicker if I get an EV, which I am planning on.

And usually (I did not read into detail here) the total cost of energy is never calculated.

In Europe, nuclear power plants usually don't have an insurance. It's the state that pays of the cleanup after an aftermath. So total cost is socialized.

Few countries have final deposits. With current technology, you need to operate them for thousands of years (e.g. guard them, so that no terrorists can get the material for "dirty bombs"). None of these total-cost studies calculates this in.

Many countries don't have their own source of uranium or the fabs to bring it up for usage in power plants. So it happens that by betting on solar, you bet on the goodwill of some external country. Did you know that most nuclear related companies worldwide used to be owned by the russian RosAtom? I have no idea if that is still true now after 5 years of war against Ukraine, so maybe the odd country seized mines or enrichment plants. But RosAtom owned stuff abroad, like Canada or Australia. Finding new ways if some terrorist country like russia suddenly ceases to supply you (like they did with gas) has a very high oppertunity cost. These studies usually don't plan in "second source" economic calculations.

In Germany, the four big electric power companies (e.g. Vattenfall, EON etc) say since decades that they don't want to open new nuclear power plants. Since it is not economically feasible. If the TCO would really be spectacular, then they would say differently. In those places, where they still open nuclear plants, like France, even a single block costs billions. I mean, one block estimated to cost 3 billion euro was costing 27 billion. Do these fabricated studies calculate in this grave error of factor 12? In France, EDF only works because it is state backed. If the TCO would be any good, they would swim in money like the senior Uncle Duck.

I said ~20% because that's the minimum required to bring it to commercial market while being competitive. If they go more, great, bonus.