Thanks for posting that link, the numbers they discuss are similar to numbers I am familiar with and thus I don't have to make any claims to use them. So his s

Thanks for posting that link, the numbers they discuss are similar to numbers I am familiar with and thus I don't have to make any claims to use them. So his system cost $51,000 and produces 7500kWh of energy per year. If he were to have set up with this Google Finance system that offers 20 year 11% financing, and assuming 1.25% property tax where he lives (PV panels will increase the value of his home after all) then his monthly payments will be $579.54, or $139,089.86 in payments through August of 2031, with a total of $75.339.86 in interest paid to the finance company Google is investing in. This is a good, safe investment for Google. For the homeowner, the 7500kwH per year will cost him $750 to buy from the grid at 10 cents a kWh. Instead he will be paying $579.54 * 12 = $6954.48 for the power, nearly ten times as much. Google's claim that you save money assumes that the cost of electricity will increase so dramatically in the future that the overall cost will be less with solar, not including your cost of financing, and not including any money you might have made from investing your money elsewhere for 20 years, but considering that the average price of electricity between now and 2030 will be more than 92.7 cents per kilowatt hour. ------ Solar PV is fine and sometimes the only choice if you are living completely off the grid, but it comes at a cost, and works best when you massively reduce consumption, switch all interior lights to 12V, realize you can't run high wattage things like microwave ovens or toasters, you'll need a kerosene powered refrigerator, and you have a costly bank of toxic batteries to maintain and periodically replace. I have done this. For grid connected living if you are interested in going green I would strongly recommend taking a look at these things: - rooftop solar heater - free hot water, which otherwise is costly to heat - dry all clothes on clothesline. Don't even own an electric or gas dryer. These use a lot of energy. If living in an area that prohibits line drying, move to an area that permits it or accept that your community does not support green living and perhaps lobby to change things. - geothermal heat pump if you need conditioned air. This one depends on climate. Electric fans throughout the house are a better option than air conditioners. (Also do note that many estimates of typical household electric use which are used in calculating recommended solar size installations assume that gas heat is used and electricity is not used for heating during winter. This may be true, but the gas heat is an additional part of the total energy cost. With a properly designed geothermal heatpump you reduce your cost of heating significantly compared to either gas or electric.) - if building from scratch, do a passive solar design. Properly done (not easy to find those who can do this), you can have zero costs for heating and cooling year round. Implementing even a few of these changes can save much more than the 7500kWh of energy that is generated by the PV panels year round in the example, and at considerably less cost.