Local Costco carrying large solar panel
 

Yesterday I went to my local Costco and saw they had a few 24 Volt, 220 Watt, Grape Solar polycrystalline panels for sale. Specs are not exact, because I couldn't see the name plate very well WHILE HOLDING this huge panel safely at the same time. (specs weren't printed on info tag)

220 Watts
29 Vmp (Voc was in the mid 30s)
7.5 A Imp
8.4 A Isc
MC 4 connectors
$569

~$2.59 per watt seem like Ebay prices..

Specs: GrapeSolar :: P220W

Amazon has them too.. Amazon.com: Grape Solar CS-P-220-DJ 220 Watt Polycrystalline PV Solar Panel: Patio, Lawn & Garden

Check here, Solar Panels - Best Prices
then add the shipping to see what's out there.. :)

We don't have Costco around here, but I did a search on their web site. They have a range of grid-tied solar kits, for $3600-$18000:

Costco - Grape Solar 880 Watt Expandable Grid-tied Solar Kit
Costco - Grape Solar 5060 Watt Grid-tied Solar Kit

Our local BJs Discount store has panels, But they're up on the roof!!

woburn ma - Google Maps

wow is that for real, thats a really really cheap price. I guess the only problem is they cant offer installation, but you could always get an installer to wire it all up for you. Unless they are the type of solar panels camping kits that come all wired up with the regulators built in, then they would be ready to use, and too cheap to be true hehe

Those are not really 220 watt panels, they are 194 watt panels.

Max Peak Power Pmax 220 W (0% / +3%)
CEC PTC Listed Power 194 W

You have to go to their "250 watt" panel before you get 223 watts out of it, that is, if you wanted to compare rated outputs to rated outputs, instead of their "Max Peak Power" the rated output is based off 1000 watts per square meter of sun energy hitting the panel and is what your sun hours per day is based off.
Either way, the listed power output is what you want to compare, it's like comparing EPA miles per gallon when comparing cars.

I know what you mean. My 125W UL Solar PVs rarely get up to 125w output.
But, I was surprised by the Canadian Solar 200W panels.
They will put out a full 200 DC watts just about any time the conditions are good.
(It's cool, sunny and the angles are right)..

I have one 85W panel. I've never measured that many Watts under load, but have often measured the nameplate Amps under load (Imp). As long as I am getting the rated energy out of it, I hadn't really worried about the Watts.

Watts is amps times volts and that is part of where a maximum power point tracker comes in, it adjusts the load so your voltage and amps add up to the highest number of watts allowing you to get a few more watts out of a panel, any panel, but when comparing panels you should compare the rated output as the rated output is what they are warrantied to put out for 25 years and what they will produce with normal use without any other fancy devices, otherwise it's like buying a car based only off what kind of mileage it gets while driving a steady 55mph on a flat road.

If you just stick your Amp meter across the output, you pretty much get the rated amps..

If that's 5 amps, what is the voltage? Watts= amps x volts.
If you have 12 volts across your load with 5 amps of current, that's 60 watts..