Came across this article reporting on a Massachusetts solar panel manufacturer closing its American plant and opening a plant in China: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/business/energy-environment/15solar.html

The article states that even though the manufacturer (Evergreen) opened the new plant in 2008, prices for panels had dropped so much they can't afford to operate in the states anymore.  It further states Evergreen was selling panels at $1.90 per watt just a year ago but panels are now being sold at $1 per watt so they have to relocate for cheaper manufacturing costs.

I am sure these are wholesale prices, but even so it is promising for the consumer.  Anybody actually gotten a quote lately?  At $1 per watt the ROI pencils out pretty quick.

I have bought from http://sunelec.com/ before and never had an issue with them, they are selling the evergreen panels for just over $2 a watt. They also sell "Sun" panels, supposedly made by evergreen but are not UL rated for just about $1 a watt, the two look identical side by side and are rated almost identically. I would only recommend them if your truly off grid since they are not UL rated. Apparently that UL rating comes at a cost :)

Quite, a UL listing can cost from $15K for the most simple of products to hundreds of thousands. And any time you wish to change ANYTHING you have to go through approvals again (more $$$$).

'just about $1 a watt'

Can you provide a specific page for that price? Saw $1.69 for 'sun' panels, nothing under that except on offer of $1.49/w if you bought 15 megawatts!

There is also much more in the cost of a working solar panel system than just the base cost of the panels. Batteries, install, mounting, inverters, shipping, derating, etc.

That's very good price. Even much better than manufacturer.