Excuse me @ARE_you_kidding_me , but depending on where you live the cost could be recouped in as little as 5 years.
I see it like buying a car, except when you get it paid off it still has 20–50 years productive life in it, AND you’re not paying the utility companies.
Look at your bill. If you are blowing through the lower tiers (the cheapest utility cost) very fast then you should consider solar. In most applications it ties into your existing utility grid. If you produce more than you use in the daytime it is put back on the grid and “banked” for future use.
Sizing your solar system requires a years worth of utility bills, an analysis of your property (will it be shaded at any time during the day?) and someone who is knowledgable about how weather effects solar in your area. The panels come with an output rating but all those factors d rate your system.
You don’t want a system that offsets your lowest tiers of electricity because that is usually really cheap.
If you can afford it, I would advise against leasing companies like Solar City and buy your own. If you finance it, when it’s paid off it’s all yours and no one can come remove it because your lease is up. You also aren’t stuck with the payments for 20–30 years.
My husband got his license to be a solar installer but the industry is very competitive. We couldn’t compete. I’m not sure if there are still tax credits but when we did it I think it was 30%! Many local jurisdictions also have rebates. On our last house we installed our own.
We bought our current house off grid and that is a different animal. We are not connected to the grid and store our excess electricity in batteries. We have upgraded the system here, adding panels, buying new awesome batteries and getting a propane generator back up. It is all controlled by a central brain that knows when the generator needs to come on and monitors our batteries. We live in Southern Oregon now and lived in central California before.
The cost of solar panels has come down a lot in the last 5 years. I would find a local contractor that has been in business no less than 5 years. Use micro inverters if you can. They invert the power fro DC to AC right at the panel. The advantage to that is that inverters are kind of like the old christmas lights. If one panel is shaded the entire system on that inverter goes down. If you have 1 central inverter one shaded panel would negatively effect the performance of the entire system. With micro inverters if one panel is shaded the other ones will continue to produce.
I’ve probably told you more than you want to know, but I’m kind of passionate about it.