Our power doesn’t go out terribly often here—certainly less often than it did in West Virginia—but when it does, De Rechos notwithstanding, it goes out for longer periods. Dr. Evil is, like so many others these days, glued to her Zoom machine 8 to 26 hours a day, and needs reliable, constant ‘lectric. We have a small portable generator, but it’s a genuine pain to haul up to the house, especially since power outages go hand in hand with crap weather. The solution? Well, it’s right overhead, and free. Yeah, “free.”

We asked a local solar installer to give us a proposal for a system that would offset our grid usage and provide backup power during outages. We’ve been hearing about how solar costs have been coming down in recent years, and were pleased that solar tax credits, which the Former Guy wanted to eliminate (because, reasons?), have been extended another couple of years. This, combined with advances in battery storage, made it seem like now was the time. It was a nice dream while it lasted. The bid? $53,300!!! Now, that’s the cash price, and it can be financed over either 10 or fifteen years, which would “only” triple or quadruple our current monthly cost of energy. As they say in France, le sigh.

We’ve asked our solar person to recalculate based on a smaller system, but I’m afraid we still won’t like the answer. The sad fact is that solar remains a rich (and young) person’s game. I suppose if you bundled it in with the price of new construction it wouldn’t hurt so much, but that’s not where we are.