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I installed solar in my house, but I only installed about twelve kilowatts. It paid for itself in about seven years but, whether you know it or not, using solar or not, using solar does not change the fact that there is a minimum fee Per month, in my case it’s twenty seven dollars just to be hooked up to the grid. I really wanted the solar for grid down protection. Since I’ve had the solar for the last 15 years We’ve lost the grid very little. I’m down so little that I could have gotten away with just using my generator. I totally did the installation myself, which made the total cost about half of what it would have been if I had hired it to be installed. I bought batteries directly from china and saved half the cost of batteries my batteries will run my house for well over a week if I do not use my large air conditioning unit. I installed mini splits to dramatically reduce my electric load but I only have a few rooms cooled with the mini splits, my bedroom and the kitchen dining area. I’ve probably lost about twenty percent of my capacity through the years. I’m considering getting newer solar panels and increasing my self reliance. I’ve gotten too old to install it myself however, if I get new panels I’ll have to pay to have them installed. I enjoyed engineering and installing my solar project. I enjoy having it, but it’s not for the faint of heart. I now have a plug in hybrid car. The vast majority of driving we do if we don’t take a long trip is done with electricity Which comes from the sun. That’s a very nice feature to have. We do have net metering in that we produce more than we need during the day, and it goes to the grid, at nighttime however, when there is no sun producing electricity for us we get that back at no extra charge. The utility companies don’t like the net metering and convinced the state lawmakers to cut it out however, we were grandfathered in so we get to keep using it.