Story

I really, really wanted to get into solar for my home a year or two ago, until I discovered the hard facts.

1. It is completely unfeasible for a typical home to go completely "off-grid" due to the humongous cost, space, and maintenance required for all the batteries to smooth the day/night load patterns.

2. So the vast majority of installations are "grid-tied", meaning they pull power from the normal grid, and sometimes feed power back into it.

3. Even with the generous incentives, pay-back time for an initial investment is at least 4-7 years, during which time that $20,000 might have been better spent in a mutual fund.

4. I didn't really have $20,000 lying around anyway.

There are leasing options that mitigate some of this, but not entirely. Do you really want to be paying Elon Musk (investor in SolarCity) every month in perpetuity instead of your electric company?