Are there any grants for solar energy for my home?

What would be the implications of 25+% consumer adoption of solar panels (or other net-positive home energy generation)?

• Prices for home solar equipment, as an example, have dropped quite a bit in the last 5-10 years.  In many jurisdictions in the United States, customers that produce more than their own personal usage of electricity are permitted -- or legally entitled! -- to 'sell' that energy to their local, licensed provider. On that premise, and assuming whatever levels of adoption would be necessary to induce dramatic changes, what kind of a chain of events could we anticipate if home users start collectively producing enough energy to sustain their own neighborhoods?  I'm thinking along the lines of drops in energy prices or grassroots re-Publicization (which is not a word but means what it looks like) of energy utilities once a surplus is created. Clearly it will be a milestone for humanity once we finally bother to trivialize energy production.. how could consumer-level efforts contribute?

• Answer:

  Summary: If there something to be done which is advantageous at homes, it isn't putting solar panels on them, but insulating them, weather-stripping them and replacing windows with double- or triple-pane windows. 25% percent penetration of solar panels just won't make that much of a difference. It's important to look at overall energy consumption by source before getting into this question in any detail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LLNLUSEnergy2011.png As can be seen, Residential consumption is only 11.4% of the total consumption. Solar energy, of course, only produces electricity during the daytime and is best with clear skies, and as such is much more effective in areas such as the US southwest with its low precipitation (but significant dust storms degrading performance). Fully distributed energy where energy is being created at the household level is typically the least efficient form of generation, but makes up for at least some of that with lower losses in distribution and political spin off benefits such as job creation. It's worth looking at household energy consumption by source as well. As can be seen, electricity as a portion of household varies widely with South Central having the highest ratio of electricity and the Northeast having the highest ratio of fossil fuels powering households. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_household_energy_usage.png What are the implications of these patterns? At the very most 2% of total energy consumption might be shifted to renewables with home generation, and likely a lot less on a full-lifecycle basis. This won't do much for global warming. Where solar resources are greatest is also where electricity as a form of household energy is also greatest, so for the most part this will reduce peak consumption of electricity rather than replace home burning of fossil fuels. Rural and suburban jobs would be created for installation and maintenance of solar panels. It is much more useful to reduce consumption at households than to generate electricity at households.  Heating is a dominant form of home consumption and it is often delivered by oil or gas furnaces. Reducing consumption of oil and gas for heating through insulation is a better choice than generating electricity at the home. Consumption must be managed at point of consumption. It can't be done more efficiently upstream (wastage can, but that's a different discussion). Generation is always more efficient with economies of scale. Household generation is bottom end of the voltage stack and must be transformed upward to plug into the distribution grid, losing a percentage of that localized benefit. Distributed solar farms at utility scale typically generate at grid mid-range of 100KW already, requiring only stepping down for consumption. Conservation jobs could be created for insulation companies, glass companies and home energy auditors instead. This would be closer to a wash. Put efforts into supporting residential conservation, not residential generation.