However, I love green energy at the individual level, if you have different motivations for why you do it, and if you live in an area that can make it work reasonably well (i.e. solar in the southern half of the U.S.).
My reason for putting solar panels onto my roof and a substantial battery bank into my garage are to make it so that at least the energy portion of my monthly budget won't be thrown completely out of whack every time the Dims raise our energy costs (ostensibly to force us to repent from our cow farting ways). This is not a good idea if you're young (read: in the wealth-building stage of your life), if you plan to move in 15 years (before the solar system pays for itself), if you have trees shading your roof, or if you have a shingle roof (needing to be replaced every 10 years while the solar panels have maybe a 25-year warranty).
I don't have those limitations. I used mainly a HELOC (plus only 3% of my wealth, but the solar tax credit refunded back to me went back into my investments) to put solar panels onto my metal roof that has no shade and gets plenty of sun in the south. I got tired of both my natural gas bill and power bill increasing a lot more than a modest 3% inflation rate even though my wife and I didn't increase our energy consumption. My now all-electric house gets about 50% of its power from the solar system. Thus as the Dims make us pay more for power I'll fuss about it only half as much. Even if the Dims quit making energy more expensive and the power rate goes up only a reasonable 3% per year for inflation, my system will still pay for itself in 9 years, even with paying for the interest on the HELOC I used to buy the system. After the HELOC is paid off I'll put the savings I have every month from a lower power bill into a simple investment account and use that money to maintain and upgrade the system.
Will it ever get me completely off-grid? No. To be honest, any upgrade on my system at this point will run into the Law of Diminishing Returns -- upgrades aren't feasible. But if it allows me to have only $300 per month in my budget to power my all-electric two-story home for life (the $300 being the power bill plus the HELOC payment for now, after HELOC is paid off it'll be power bill plus invest the excess so I can use it later for upgrades even though upgrades increase the efficiency a little more) while everybody else has power/natural gas bills increasing geometrically (Obama: under my plan electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket), then it's served its purpose.
Basically, I like green energy from a libertarian standpoint. I hate green energy the way the Dims try to force it onto us to make us bow to their climate apocalypse god and pay a tithe of carbon credits to their climate prophet Algore. I especially hate the bastardization of physics where they expect a one-size-fits-all to work well for everybody regardless of a region's environment or needs. But decentralized green energy (read: done at the individual level) is working well for me.
Nice write-up. A couple of comments:
1) A huge factor is the marginal cost for power. For me in Texas, it’s about 10 cents per kwh, in California it’s over 30 cents. In Texas, solar still has its place, but it should be looked at more as a way to at least partially remove oneself from the grid and partially ensure some stability in electric prices (in case the state goes Blue), rather than an assured investment.
2) If you do want all-electric, you’ll do best in the south, where heat pumps cost no more to heat than natural gas furnaces. The colder you get, the more fossil fuels make sense (and the less power you’ll get in winter) and heat pumps don’t do nearly as well (although a new one seems to work much better at cold temperatures).
3) If you have a new standard roof (i.e., composition roof), of decent quality, you should get 20 years out of it, or close enough, so it comes pretty close to the 25 year panels.
4) For youngsters trying to build wealth, if you are in an expensive place like California, having a 5 to 7 year guaranteed payback on a solar investment is not a bad deal, basically a 10% plus guaranteed investment. Other than that, don’t bother.