In Califonia ( Pacific Gas & Electric land ) PV is booming solely due to Federal and State subsidies.

The Federal credit is 30%… and just kicked in this year without a $2,000 limit.

The California subsidy is rigged through PUC pricing mechanisms such that to the taxpayers it looks like the money is coming from PG&E !

The combined effect is to provide internal rates of return of about 10% after taxes basically inflation adjusted !

So any Californian holding munis should sell them to install a solar array on his property ASAP.

The California subsidy is stepped down in stages based on the capacity of systems already installed. There is a subsidy pool for homeowners and another one for commercial facilities.

The price of polysilicon has dropped and capacity has risen dramatically. Perhaps PV one day will make sense without subsidies — that day still looks far off.

BTW the electric rate schedule in California uses five different tiers all of which move up in the summer months and back down in the winter months…

Right now the PUC is looking to bump rates up 17% across the board to fund the PV subsidies !

All of that to fund a trivial fraction of California’s electric power.

Tier 1 $0.13 0-500 Watts continuous average load;
Tier 2 0.15 501-650 Watts;
Tier 3 0.26 651-1000 Watts;
Tier 4 0.36 1001-2000 Watts;
Tire 5 0.46 2001+ Watts…

(Figures rounded/approximate…variations exist across the State)

Those installing PV systems get to sell their excess juice back to the utility at mid-day rates calculated typically as Tier 4 or 5…

By comparison conventional sources are almost an order of magnitude less expensive.

Politics entirely responsible for the PV industry. That’s why the Green Party of Germany has made that northern country the world’s largest solar array market!