I looked into this for my new house. Problem is that you need to be in that house for a minimum of 7 years or so for the solar power equipment to pay for itself.
I may still do it just to be a little bit green but it seems that until the price comes down a lot more, they are still not economical for most people.
I've heard of programs where you can actually roll power out of your house into the grid and it rolls your meter back. Then when your utility checks the meter they'll send you a check. I don't know if this ever took off, or how many people could actually produce extra juice, but it was a good idea.
And what's the alternative? Just continue paying high monthly power bills?
More like 107 years, but the whole thing needs to be replaced long before then.
I have built a number of "solar" houses, but have limited them to passive features, and active hot water systems. Energy, in the form of heat, is easy to transfer, and store. Electricity is a lot different.
The "array" of cells, whether roof panels, or shingles, must be facing the sun, and then it will give varying degrees of output, during that daily cycle. It must be regulated, in its output. If the sun doesn't shine, then it has a very limited collection capability. It must be used, or stored. Storage requires batteries, which have a reasonable short "shelf life", and are bulky, and expensive. They must be stored specially. In addition, the DC current that is generated is not effective for most normal appliances, and electronics. It must be "conditioned" into the higher voltage alternating currents.
Maybe there will be some big changes, but for now, it doesn't make economic sense to generate electricity using the sun...
Or if the conversion efficiency improves considerably. State of the art PV cells can reach 32% (PV cells available commercially are less efficient).
If / when the technology improves, more homeowners may become interested in weening themselves off the grid.