AR>Fotovoltaic used to be total trash. With the current price of electricity it
  >starting to make some sense to install it at home. Still, I have given the
  >numbers elsewhere and they weren't pretty. Think of a 18k USD or so for a
  >deployment that grants power for a big rural house 92% of the year. Lifespan
  >the weakest component (battery) would be 5 to 10 years, most likely the forme

My sister covered her garage roof with solar panels that feed back into the
grid to save them a small percentage of their power costs. The panels cost
them $80,000, make about half the power they were estimated to produce and
have to be cleared of snow in winter. There are frequent equipment
failures, mostly with the computerized parts of the collection knocking out
individual panels. Being into the grid there are no batteries involved.

The old saying, 'It seemed like a good idea at the time!' comes to mind..

It could be worse though. The power company sort of hates these things and
has backed off promoting it as strongly by paying only about 40% as much to
new people getting into it these days compared to what she is getting.

(There's a contract locking in what they will pay you when you first hook up
to the grid..)

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