Could solar panels ever be feasible?

[quarky]

Any one read "Natural Capitalism" by Amory Lovins and Paul Hawkens?
There's some inspirational examples of the power savings through design in that book.

 

[GreyICE]

Last time I checked we were discussing homes not commercial offices which are mostly horrors of wasteful design anyways.
Cost of power for lighting a home - very small compared to other aspects..
As far as being a factor in adopting solar for a home....it's not.

Actually most homes make offices look remarkably good. Do you know how many homes have single pane glass, wood insulation (or a distinct lack of modern insulation), ancient boilers with 40% efficiency, ACs with SEERs of like 7, etc.?

Offices have some horrible horrible features, no question, but they're much better designed than an average home.

 

[RussDill]

@ the OP: I think the technology is here now. I don’t believe that New Jersey, USA is known for being a particularly sunny location, but some NJ home owners have installed solar panels to offset the majority of their monthly electricity bill. From a 3-year old Wall Street Journal article:

$170 over 6 weeks prorates to $113.00 and change over 4 weeks. So, per the above Wall Street Journal article, Frank Corradi’s monthly electric bill drops from $140 to $27.00 a month because of his solar panels. ( ETA: Oops! I misread the article. This is partially because at a "green party" I went to over the summer, I met a contractor who designs systems just powerful enough to offset costs but not generate cash flow. IIRC, he did this to minimize the amount of cash the home owner would have to outlay for the system. But in the WSJ article, the home owner who was interviewed made a different choice.)

This is something that's always bothered me, maybe someone can explain the logic. We are subsidizing homeowners and businesses to produce inefficient power. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend that money on centralized plants that produce power cheaply and with few emissions?