Replies

I'm an (almost) electrical engineer, I took a photovoltaics course last summer with the professor who literally wrote the book on photovoltaics.

I just looked at a few of the "whole system" designs I had done. If the panels I used in my designs had been FREE, the overall cost of the system would have only dropped by less than %10. The costs of a PV system in order are: batteries, inverters, charge controllers, solar panels, cabling, and hardware.

I've given PV systems a lot of thought over the years and IMHO the only way to go would be inexpensive solar roofing shingles tied directly into the grid (no batteries). If every building had this set-up we could probably cut our domestic non-solar electricity generation by %20-30. Peak energy usage is always during the daylight hours, lucky for us that's also when the sun's out :) .