Insolation does not vary that much across the US. The best areas, in the southwest, are not more than twice as good as the worst, which I believe is the Olympic peninsula in WA. Why did Arizona's solar industry take off and New Mexico's didn't? The answer is not differences in insolation.
In other words, I do not buy that this is the main reason that electrofelon's suggestion does not work for you. I'm going to do it soon, now that I finally own my own home. It's going to give me electricity that costs about 3.3cents / kWh, since I'll be using some used panels. Otherwise it would cost me 5cents. I did a quick check with PVwatts on my location vs central Michigan (Houghton) and it came out to 78% of the same production in MI, which results in 6.4cents kWh. That's a deal for electricity anywhere in the US. And my house, btw, has some trees around it.
There is still a federal tax credit.
But electrofelon is not suggesting that you make it a business, he's pointing out that it should pay for electricians as a DIY project. Now it may be true that if there were a robust and competitive solar industry in your area, then equipment prices might be a bit lower, making DIY even more attractive. But that still wouldn't be decisive. The real factor is what you get paid for the energy you export to the grid. That's going to trump everything else.
So I am expected to either go on my roof and install panels, which isn't happening, or, failing that, place the panels in the back yard and dig a 100 foot long trench, which also isn't happening.
DIY is not for me.
I would also have to do a panel upgrade, which would have to happen DIY or not.
Once installed, my property value will increase, and so will my property taxes.
Once installed, I would have to keep them clean in the summer, and free of snow in the winter. The snow thing would not be taken care of unless I paid to have it done.
Federal tax credits only help people that pay federal taxes, correct? What if a person is on SSI and doesn't make enough to pay federal taxes?
In the event of an equipment failure, who is going to pay for the troubleshooting, repair and/or equipment replacement?
Last year my total electric was $612. $84 of that was a 7 dollar a month system access fee, which won't go away, so I spent $528 on kWh's.
The info I got from the solar energy class was helpful. I cut my energy costs markedly without buying a solar system. We also learned how to do accurate ROI reports. We got to bring home the cool insolation measuring gadgets and take actual measurements.
Trust me, if I could actually save money by having a solar system here, I would. So would nearly everyone. But, they don't. Don't take my word for it, my zip code is 49442. Take a look at the area using Bing Maps' aerial view and look for panels.
While we were in class, the big class project was to do an estimate and ROI of a fairly large sized solar system and present it to the owner of the company. This was done by every class, and presented to different companies.
So far, only one business bought the idea, and it is being used as show and tell by the college. The owner admits he bought the system for ecological and educational purposes rather than economical.
If solar was a good deal, I would consider it. It would still have to be a good deal after paying others to maintain it, though. If I wanted to trade labor for energy I would own a wood stove.
