A Hybrid Model

Until fairly recently solar energy has been sidelined as an unrealistic form of energy generation for the home.

In reality a large amount of solar energy falls on people's roofs each day - maybe not enough to power your house, but at least enough to take note of.

Let's say you live in San Diego, have a couple of 80 Watt solar panels, some motorboat batteries, and an inexpensive inverter. You set up the panels on your roof to fill the batteries under sitting your house during the day, so you can use the electricity in the evening. On a really sunny day you might be able to store a few Amp Hours in a battery which you could use later - maybe a few hours of a desk lamp's light.

Clearly, it's not a lot of energy, but we'd all agree: it's not absolutely nothing. And if you actually used this system on that sunny day, maybe a few cents were shaved off your bill.