Here’s my two cents: a lot of solar talk feels like a shell game.
People say, “Go solar, it pays for itself.” My question: when—and who’s footing the parts you don’t see?
- How many panels does it take to do anything? A single panel won’t run your house. Typical homes need a system (dozens of panels, inverters, wiring, mounts). One panel is a yard ornament.
- Sticker shock & the long wait. Buying and installing a full system is serious money. Add inverters that fail, roof work, batteries if you want backup, and it’s a long road to “break even.” In plenty of places, the math never pencils.
- “Clean” isn’t the whole story. Panels are made with energy—usually from fossil fuels. Glass, aluminum frames, silicon wafers, shipping—none of that is free of carbon.
- Tax credits & incentives. A small credit helps, sure—but it’s lipstick on a big bill. Credits also come and go; when they dry up, projects stall.
- Abandoned arrays. I’ve seen what happens when the money or maintenance runs out: dead inverters, storm damage, theft, salt corrosion near the coast—fields of panels that don’t turn a single fan. One island project in the Philippines (Pangan-an) reportedly ceased around 2013 and left ~500 panels behind—a memorial to a plan with no long-term fuel: maintenance.
- Why do projects fail? No budget for operations and parts. Batteries age out. Inverters die. Local tech support vanishes. Donors fund the shiny install, not the decade of care. The sun is free. The system is not.
If you truly love the idea and your rates are sky-high, do your own math—all-in. Ask in writing: install price, roof work, inverter replacements, batteries (if you want actual backup), monitoring, warranty terms, and who fixes what when it breaks. Then ask what your utility pays for exports and whether they can change that on you.
I’m not against the sun. I’m against selling a lifestyle while hiding a ledger. If the payback is real, show it—no asterisks.
Your turn: Did you install solar? How did the math shake out five years later—real numbers, not brochures.