Reply #23: Solar PV works pretty well ...

[tanstaafl]

My house uses approx 1200 KW per month. Divide that by 30 days gives me a requirement of 40 KW per day. Assume 8 hours of daylight on average give me a requirement of 5 KW system.

5 KW * 8 hrs / day * 30 days / month = 1200 KW / month.

Approx cost about $40-45K. Add more for batteries.

Add it to my mortgage @ $6 / $1000 and it works out to about $250 / month. Current electric bill is just about that. Furthermore, assuming economies of scale along with government incentives / rebates and the cost gets even lower. Even more, by distributing production to all those rooftops you lower the chances of widespread power outages.

Add on top of that the Net Metering laws which allow me to sell my excess power back at market rates and if I stay on the grid, then I won't need to add batteries and I can still offset my costs.