And the simple answer is the self defeating, "It costs a lot of money."

     Take for instance, an in home solar setup, pre-made kits that sell excess back into the power grid range from about $8,000 on up to well over $50,000 for serious 6kw setups(source). It's roughly the same cost as remodeling sections of your house. A small kit setup may be the same as remodeling a bathroom, a large setup similar to remodeling a kitchen.

     If you do it yourself you save money, I'll cover that in later articles.

     Most of the hard numbers equations for return on investment of these systems are disheartening to say the least. With household solar systems taking 7 to 20 years to pay for itself, it would seem like a poor and long term investment.

     But the truth is that it will eventually pay for itself, that in itself should be amazing. Something you change about your house will turn your house from a consumer to a producer. That's a fundamental change of no small significance, your house can now contribute to the national economy in a measurable way. Sort of like how you do by working, although it does so by just sitting there soaking up the sun.

     It's not like a remodeled kitchen is actually going to produce anything. In fact, if you compare the solar system setups to other household upgrades, none of them will ever pay for themselves in the same way. While it may be true that the granite counter tops and brass fixtures in the kitchen might increase the resale value of your home, the increase (outside of recent bubble effects) is rarely equal to what you put into it and only outperforms the solar setup if you sell your house more frequently than 7-20 years. If you judged solar installations in the same way by resale value and you included electricity production, they become a much more viable investment. Who wouldn't like to buy a house that reduces it's electricity costs by as much as 70 percent?

     Look at it another way. Do you have any unoccupied houses in your neighborhood right now? You know, “investment” properties that aren't selling now. There they sit, doing nothing, either costing an investor an extra monthly mortgage, or costing a bank lost yearly interest. Even in a flat price market the house is slowly loosing value, it's materials slowly degrading. It's a different story when the house is a producer.

     While a solar powered house might not produce enough electricity to pay it's own mortgage, or cover it's own lost interest. That level of production is not too far off for reasonably priced properties outside of various market bubbles.

     Wouldn't that be something? If say, you decide to quit your job, seal up the house and go hike across the country on your last paycheck, and let the house pay its own rent while your gone... Okay, so we're not quite their yet(in housing markets I'm familiar with). But still a house that is a producer could help offset that poorly timed investment property purchase. Banks could actually make something off that foreclosed property, instead of logging a net stagnation loss of interest. And that is something that is a fundamental change in the way a properties like a house functions in the world today.

This has been the first in a series of articles on the 'retail' cost of going green. To be intermixed with a series of articles on the 'bargain' price of going green. So sign up for the feed if you find this an interesting topic.