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At this moment in time, in Washington State, a 5.5kw solar panel array costs $25K. Incentives are $.54 per watt reintroduced to the system. (Now, here you go folks. The utility co. charges $0.459 per kw.) Unfortunetally this program ends in 2016. My usage, according to the utility company, averages 3200W/month over the year. So I should be able to install and start making money, right? @ about 2kW sent back into the system, I should make out handsomely. 2000x.54=108. WOW. Because I don't use air conditioning, or a clothes dryer in the summer, my utility bill is somewhere in the $42 to $ 50/month range for the 2 months of summer we have here. Even in the winter, I have a forced air system, No AC, my utility bill has never exceeded $120/month. (I have one of those good sense homes that were built in the '80s.)That means that I would be Warren Buffet soon enough. Still, it would take a lot longer to pay for the array, which I assume is the reason for the incentive along with the feelgood of protecting the planet, than 2016. At my rate it would take 8.5 years to pay for the array. Obviuosly utility rates are going up. My utility has raised the rate 4% this year and is going to raise it again next spring another 4.5%. (I feel for the East coast with it's charges of anywhere from $0.10 to 0.15+/kW.) so, with the expectation that this will be the norm year over year, I don't see how we can be repaid at the $0.54 rate and still have a viable incentive. If it is Federal, then YOU would be paying my way. Unless it is an equal nationwide incentive, I doubt utilities will go into solar whole hog and loose money. The powerbroker market doesn't claim ownership of solar either. We are required to use 15% of our electricity from renewables. (the reason for the rate hike!) Unfortunetally, in their great wisdom of shouldn't we all be equal, our Hydro capacity, which is substantial in the Northwest, was, get this, REMOVED as a renewable resource! WHAT! So we can be in PARITY with the rest of the country. Why should we have a lower rate than the rest of the country? Even though we paid for the build and maintenance for the last 50 years. Which is in the $100 millions. Never forget, when they told us to conserve, and we did, nationwide in the '70s and '80s and '90s, they charged a 'surcharge' of 10+% because we did such a good job. That was NOT an incentive. We did the same with our water. They did the same to us there, too. I have written here before about the solar interest. For jobs, we better get off our as-s and start. Instant economy growth. It really only takes one electrician and three or four guys to install these systems. They are done within a week. Lets get a hundred thousand people working. Once they are installed in 60 to 70% of homes we can start to close some of those nasty coal plants.