> You can now break even on electricity costs for a residential pitched-roof installation in under 5 years. This is without any subsidies, without selling anything back to the grid.
This is arguably a false economy.
~75% of costs for the power grid are not in volume electricity generation, but in maintenance. They haven't priced it that way in most places to encourage power-saving and reduce the need for new infrastructure construction, but they'll be forced to if every roof sprouts solar cells.
If volume electricity generation is the concern, doing it in a field is dramatically cheaper than doing it on a roof.
This is arguably a false economy.
~75% of costs for the power grid are not in volume electricity generation, but in maintenance. They haven't priced it that way in most places to encourage power-saving and reduce the need for new infrastructure construction, but they'll be forced to if every roof sprouts solar cells.
If volume electricity generation is the concern, doing it in a field is dramatically cheaper than doing it on a roof.