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I have been looking into rooftop PV for some years. While it would have made sense financially at the personal level, I have thought that the premium feed in rates were a stupid idea as they distorted the market badly, and they end up coming back to us in the rates for conventionally generated power anyway.
I think what Alex wrote above is quite true, Solar PV with storage would teach people a lot about energy consumption. I am holding off any decisions at the moment to see if the much promised storage solutions actually do appear soon. If that is the case then suddenly a spend on solar PV makes a lot more sense for us.
As things stand we could probably justify a modest grid connected system with no storage, we have two people at home during the day every day so offsetting our daytime consumption with locally generated output would probably be financially viable. Better still would be a system which could provide enough current to run our aircon either in cooling mode in summer or as a heat top up in winter. It would be nice to be able to switch it on without wondering if the flicking sound from the fan is a $100 note being shredded rather than a leaf that has been sucked in!
Solar PV and storage would be even better, our location means that electric cooking is about the only viable option, being able to harvest and store enough excess during the day to cook our dinner after dark would be a godsend in the almost certain TOU future where it might cost 60c/KWH to cook dinner in peak time, useage that can not be readily pushed outside peak times if you have a child in the home.
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