Do you want to know how to beat the stock market? In 46 of America’s 50 largest cities, installing a fully financed, typical-sized, residential solar power system will do just that, according to a Department of Energy-backed study released earlier this year. In other words, by investing in solar panels, most homeowners will save more in electric costs over the next 25 years (the approximate life of the system) than they would earn from investing the same money in the stock market over that same time period. In fact, the study also found that, of the single-family households in the 50 largest American cities, 93 percent of them (or 21 million households) would pay less for solar power today than they currently pay to purchase power from their electric utility.
But here’s the thing: According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, building and operating a large-scale solar power plant (which is cheaper to build and operate per unit of energy than a small-scale residential installation) costs twice as much as building and operating a conventional fossil-fuel power plant.
