For the first time, U.S. homeowners can buy solar panels off the shelves from a major retailer, *-(this assumes that Fry's electronics and Harbor Freight are not major retailers, and that they have not been selling solar panels for 5 or more years now)-. Akeena Solar Inc. last week announced that its Andalay AC panels are available at 21 Lowe's Home Improvement stores in the state of California. The panels, which were recently honored with a 2009 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Product award, are featured as part of Lowe's Energy Center at the stores.

The Andalay AC system is fully integrated with built-in racking, grounding, wiring and micro-inverters. Andalay panels also have built-in inverters that produce household AC power, so there is no high-voltage DC wiring. *-(The built in inverter is a new feature as far as I know)-

Andalay AC systems use Suntech panels and Enphase micro-inverters. Andalay modules are UL listed and CSA certified. Akeena said that Andalay AC panels produce 5 to 25 percent more energy output compared with ordinary DC solar panels.

*-(I find it interesting that the higher output is listed as a range, wasn't there a controlled setting to determin the output value with some degree of accuracy?)-

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* My comments injected into the article.