I have tried researching on the internet and just cant find any real answer. I know that the amount of electricity produced when taking in the suns rays depends on the placement of the solar panels but I am just looking for ball park figures. Thanks
Ultimately it depends on your utility and the country you're in. In countries like Germany, Spain and the UK, the utilities will pay a higher price for the power you produce then what they sell it to you at. Otherwise, in countries that don't have such arrangements, net metering is best where what you produce is discounted from the amount you buy per month therefore so long as you produce less than you use, you get the full retail rate, otherwise you may get only half the retail rate with some utilities. Obviously, the solar panels are rated and won't produce much more than the rated power, a 4 foot by 2 foot panel would usually be rated at 00 watts but in most situations will produce about 80 watts and would probably cost about $500 US installed. If you assume 8 hours of usable sunshine a day, 70% sunny days, a 25 year service life, monthly billing and 0 cents a kilo watt hour retail rate, you can expect at most a -.67% per annum return on your investment, that's a negative sign out front. Basically without any subsidies, you will lose money on the panel, sure you're get some money every month, about $.34 per month for that 00 watt panel but it won't make back it's money at at a rate of 0.0 per kwh. With subsidies it might be a good investment but it's still not a good deal without subsidies.
call your power company and ask them how much they pay for each kWh you feed back into the grid (the price may vary for different times of the day). then multiply that by however much electricity you are producing.
