The last place I worked we did this (though with some permission). One of the guys made friends with some people at a thin film solar plant down the street. He got a bundle of manufacturing rejects (300w panels that only made 280) for free. We strung them up on the roof and were raking in the kWh. Enough to charge 3 electric vehicles without paying the power company.
This makes me wonder why the panel manufacturer doesn't bin panels like they do with CPUs? Surely they could sell them for less than the 300W panels, but more than zero?
Most do. The panels you see on rooftops are all generally exactly the same size but could generate anywhere from 315w/panel to 250w/panel depending on binning. No idea why that company didn't.
