Homemade solar cells are quite expensive in both time and money to produce by yourself.

A much simpler option is to buy used solar cells. It takes as little as five minutes and its not as expensive as you might believe.

There are a few methods how you can land up with acquiring solar cells. You can pick them up from a highway patrol (sometimes they might pick them up after a car accident), or else you can also get them at your local hardware store.

The above two ways are possibilities of buying cheap solar cells. Other than that is a way where you can get them easily – its through eBay. It works like this:

First, search eBay for broken solar cells or chipped solar cells which will throw open a number of bids.

Dont forget to read the descriptions before bidding to make sure the cells are not damaged beyond repair. Also check to see that they all are about the same size so that they can be assembled together on a single panel.

In case you are keen on the more costly option, search for transparent cells on eBay, or look for latest cells by reputed companies like Evergreen Solar. This is a costly choice; nevertheless, this will enable you to assess your estimated power output in order to buy the exact number of cells.

How much should you expect to pay?

This entirely depends on the condition of low-cost solar cells when you bought them from eBay, but if you follow what we suggested above, you would not be spending more than a few cents for each cell.

Fully efficient and professionally manufactured cells like those from Evergreen Solar would be costly; however, you may not have to pay in excess of approximately ten cents for each cell.

In fact, the costliest aspect of buying your solar cells online will likely be the shipping expenses rather than the actual products. Depending on the location of the seller and the shipping method used, you may be faced with as much as $20 in shipping costs.

By a quick calculation here, you may have to spend approximately $30-$50 for 500 chipped solar cells on eBay ” which may not be sufficient to totally do away with your electricity bill, but quite substantial enough to bring it down and make you richer by thousands of dollars every year.