Should the Government Help You Buy a Solar Panel?

Home Ownership Model

The idea came to Elaine Supkis while advising someone on how to get a home loan through the Federal Housing Administration, which made home ownership possible for millions of Americans.

"I thought, I'm a dummy," Supkis says. "We could do this for solar energy, too."

Supkis had powered her own home for years with solar cells on the roof, so she knew first hand that the technology works. Even in upstate New York, there was enough sunlight to meet her needs throughout the year. In the nation's sun belt, including places like Arizona, where she played on the summit of Kitt Peak as a child, gigawatts of potential electricity were going unused.

As with any new technology, the roadblocks to solar energy are primarily economic. Solar cells, which convert sunlight to electricity through photovoltaics, are more expensive than cheap oil. So there is little incentive for a homeowner to spend thousands on a solar system when a power line runs just outside the door.

"Right now, energy is cheap," Supkis says. "But it's not going to be cheap in the future. That we can absolutely guarantee. So we have to prepare today for the time when it will not be cheap."

But there's that old problem again. Expensive systems can't compete with cheap systems, at least not in the marketplace.

So Supkis's solution is to make solar systems pay for themselves.