San Diego is an expensive place to live, partially because its expansion is cut off on all four sides; the Pacific Ocean, the Mexican border, Camp Pendleton, and the extremely rugged topography of the eastern part of the county. The mesas and canyons are so steep that they put a state prison out there--no one could ever manage to escape or get very far.
Because the city's expansion is abruptly cut off on the eastern side, the houses on the mesas there have unimpeded southern and eastern exposure. So developers decided to build an entire subdivision powered by rooftop solar. Every house there now not only generates all of its own electricity; there is also a major quantity of unused electricity returned to the grid (by law, the power companies have to repurchase such power).
I know a couple of folks who live out there. What's interesting is something they told me--the amortized cost of the solar panels and associated electronics was supposed to take five years to recoup. That was not even considering the revenue from power resold to the local utility. However, they told me that they had saved enough in power bills to pay for the solar installation in only 3 1/2 years.
I guess that's how things roll in woke liberal California. Too bad those folks don't live somewhere with good old patriotic American power bills. We all owe a portion of our earnings to the fossil fuel companies, after all.
