Taking two decades to pay for itself depends entirely on the rate structure of the utility and the prices of the installer. Prices in the US are heavily inflat

Taking two decades to pay for itself depends entirely on the rate structure of the utility and the prices of the installer. Prices in the US are heavily inflated because rate regulations change dramatízale year to year, which means that the only installers that survive tend to be the ones that can dynamically expand into a market before the utility closes the market again. Which means that a huge fraction of US solar costs are actually customer acquisition costs, marketing and advertising and boots on the ground doing the hard sell to consumers. Where I live, even with super expensive installation, solar pays for itself in five years. When you say "pays for itself" does that include the cost of interest and the time value of money? If so, then you can finance the installation and still come out ahead. Even with the high price of residential solar, it's still pretty cheap compared to the cost of new transmission and distribution infrastructure, which is what utility-scale solar also requires. And utility scale solar is the cheapest energy out there. So we should find ways to make the US solar industry more efficient and cost effective for consumers, because pairing residential solar with batteries (for example in an EV) is a very cost effective future.