The price of oil will increase much faster than you anticipate, and than solar will be the easiest way to power your home. On my roof, I have plenty of space for producing the electricity I need, even at 12% efficiency. Solar is the way to go, no moving parts, almost no maintenance, long life. The community, it means every individual, has to take her/his responsability.
The role of the electricity companies will be to convert excess electricity during day time to hydrogen gas that will be used at night. Every possible spot that can accomodate PV needs to be used: a nice role for creative architects!!!!

In Germany, at noon time of a sunny day, over 30% of used electricity is from PV. Think about that.

The only reason oil prices will rise is due to politicians and political policy that drives it higher. The Solar Panel boom in Germany is over. The German government is no longer subsidizing the industry because they have realized it is inefficient and not cost effective. That is one of the reasons solar panels have dropped in price. If Germany can figure it out why can't we? The solar industry in the US is going bankrupt faster than a cat with it's tail on fire. Without huge government subsidies the industry cannot survive. Without huge technological advances and tons of government cash the industry will continue to be a small operator anomaly. I also take issue with the statement that there is no maintenance. After 25+ years of using panels and batteries, that is patently untrue. Batteries require weekly care and cleaning and replacement. I use Surrette and have had to replace cells every year or two after the first 4 years. Solar panels have dead cells within 3 or 4 years and panels do not last 20 to 25 years as often claimed. Closer to 10-12. The inverters and power converters need repair in the same amount of time. In my experience the cost of maintenance/repair is near $50/month. With the conservation of energy always first and foremost for us, it would be a much easier life with the power grid. Unfortunately power is over 8 miles from our ranch and won't be feasible for some time to come. Solar would be great if it wasn't so darn expensive. I have over $40,000 invested in my system. Just the interest on my money and the repairs/maintenance would pay a normal persons electric bill and they wouldn't have to skimp constantly. And yes, we use solar for heating water and buildings as well. Given a choice, we would jump at a chance to hook on to the grid. Then we wouldn't have to wait for a sunny day to do laundry or other daily chores. Solar is great if it is your only choice! Solar and grid power would be nice. Solar with batteries not so much.

Don't spam here. No one likes spam.

I have seen co-generated power for garden lighting, solar and wind. Very small scale as it is only for LED lighting

seeing as how you're an instructables member...check instructables

Because it wouldn't make sense to dedicate several hundred bucks worth of PV panels to a single purpose. There's nothing stopping you from buying cordless yard equipment, and running the chargers from a PV panel. Or charging the batteries directly, with an appropriate charge controller thingy.

you mean 50 years ago when there was the suez crisis?

I honestly laughed. You're right though, it's been too expensive for the consumer for awhile. Fact is, it will only see a pushed change when the oil/coal/gas/nuclear sources are no longer profitable to the big boys who own governments. I'm not a conspiricist, that's just the economics of the situation.

California has been using wind energy since the 80's to provide electricy and more recently they've begun to use solar and other renewables.

In 2009 renewables produced almost 12% of that electricity. There were over 38 million people in Cali in '09.

There are difficulties in the set up. But it definitely can be done. :)

http://windconcernsontario.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/050824_anlageoben_menschen.jpg
6 months on from your comment, and solar panels are being used all over. They can be found in a variety of places ranging from lit traffic signs, in San Antonio, Texas or in areas where it would be unreasonable to run a bunch of wires to.
I think that it's important that the areas geography is taken well into effect, such as the weather conditions. There may not always be sun in places like Colorado, but there is a bloody great river there, so they made a hydroelectric dam to produce electricity. And out to sea where the wind has nothing in it's paths, wind farms are being created. We're a long way from being green, but with new techs such as bio-fuel, we can really cut down on our use of fossil fuels.

As we are in a money based economy, we will NEVER get the politicians on board, unfortunately..... (www.thezeitgeistmovement.com) however in a resource based economy we could do SOOO much more :) Check out the Venus Project... its a whole new way to think of living..... www.thevenusproject.com

Not to mention that there's a lot of inhospitable land that we could use. The Mojave desert comes to mind.

The Mojave as well as other inhospitable land, which is a matter of personal opinion, have ecosystems that would be destroyed if covered with solar panels. The danger here is that in a attempt to be ecologically friendly you actually end up destroying some ecosystems. In addition to these lands being virtually unused they are also far away for populated areas that actually require the energy. A great deal of power is lost in transmission. There is land that has already been rendered useless to the ecosystem that can accommodate solar collectors. My favorite is to build a structure over highways and streets. This will not make more land unproductive on an enviromental basis and perhaps cool the roadways so there is not as many blowouts from big rigs. In addition it could cause a lot more jobs for people to clean the panels. These are just some ideas that could have multiple benefits without making more land space useless except for making electricity.

you forgot parking lots.

I've thought of this, and the big issue with putting these solar panels over highways seems to be access to them--that is that highways are seldom closed. This may seem related, but it seems to me at least, that it would be better to put solar panels over parking lots, at least to begin with. They have the advantage of being close to the point where the power will be used. In addition, putting the panels over a parking lot wouldn't cause a significant environmental impact, and would keep the cars under them cooler, so the drivers would have to use less air conditioning (which, I believe, reduces gas mileage.) The inititive to start this kind of project would be smaller than the highway proposal, and would require less government involvement. Off-hours at the parking lot would allow access to the panels and inverters for repairs or maintenance. This might be either a plus or minus, depending on how you view this, but you could also use the structure holding the panels to display banners or other advertisements, which would subsidize the panels. That seems a two-fer to me.

I like the ad idea. It maximizes the space and could cover some unattractive aspects. When I proposed placing panels over roadways I had envisioned a superstructure that would carry the panels and allow for grating walk ways so the panels could be accessed at any time. This would allow foe crews to clean or make repairs as needed at night.

I love the idea. I also saw an article in Popular Science about making solar panels that are strong enough to withstand use as highway. Meaning that the thousands of miles of highway in the US could potentially be transformed into one giant solar collector. The article talked about the tech used in these solar panels and it said that even though it would cost quite a bit more than asphalt it would also last about ten times as long. In addition they are also working on developing solar panels that convert not just the sun's light but also the heat generated from it into power, which will also increase power output. I don't know about where you live but here in GA using the heat to power homes seems like a pretty smart decision given that it consistently gets into the 90's on any given summer day.

Who said anything about ecologically friendly? I'm stalking about long-term sustainability. If we want to be ecologically friendly, we should start by killing all humans.

That is a complete contradiction. Long-term sustainability and killing humans. What would the sustainability be for?

Protecting the world from humans. It's the only ecological thing to do.

I understand your sentiment, but we are supposed to be the stewards, not the problem.

According to whom?

According to the fact that we are sentient beings and can recognize the relationship between cause and effect.

God made us that way on purpose and expects us to hedge and protect this garden He created for us.

and the only logical one. the T-Shirt that says "despite the high cost of living, it continues to remain quite popular..."

Not to mention that there would be lost space to simply have acess to the solar panels, minus lost energy during distibution, minus the kilometers one must travel just to maintain them. In the end you would need something the size of Quebec made ONLY from solar panels to power the world, and it would only work during the day, and it would cost trillions of dollars for something that Hydroelectricity and Nuclear could do with a mere billion. Don't forget, that there may not even be enough valuable silicon in the world to make all of those cells, and the effects on the local environment from destroying so much land would be much much worse. And then what do we do in 2050 with 10 billion on earth? I hate to say it, but solar is simply a noverlty item. Great for camping, and power little doo-dads here and there, but for 100%, even 5% deployment, it wouldn't be worth it. Nuclear is clean. Hydro is clean. It's what powers all of Canada and we're doing fine, and have some of the lowest energy costs in the first world.

Until they have a foolproof way to store nuclear waste, it's not clean.

Unfortunately, thanks to the great president Carter, it is illegal to process nuclear "waste" into electricity and render it inert. So the argument of too much waste, is not a storage issue,. but a political one to allow for the processing of the "waste" into electricity.

Everything has a cost, there is no foolproof anything, only more or less bad, except to trust in God for our salvation.

In Canada, it's encased in concrete that has to protect against something like 10Mw earthquakes, and can't be stored on fault lines. Either way, it only powers 15~20% of my country. 61% is still hydro, and the rest is all small scale stuff in the North. Nowadays they're recycling the waste anyways and getting an extra 40% out of it.

Then only problems there is, where the next fault line turns up. Might not be our problem today, but it will be our progeny's at some point.