I think they are free because you will never own them, they are leased and when attached to your house they become a "keep up you lease (pay us $149/mo for life) or well foreclose on your house" Thats how someone explained it to me. I asked if I could install them in my back yard on a raised frame like the panels over the school parking lots and they said no, Has to be on the roof...wonder why...
Long Beach convention center used to have thousands on the roof. All taken off now. The Alcatraz ferry has a few token solar panels and a small turbine on its roof. I was reading the little "going green" blurb in the seating area and it is used to power...THE 8 EXIT LIGHTS! That's all the juice they can muster. F it, subsidize the panels themselves and allow us to install them on our own roofs and own the whole system, not off this credit to these lease companies and give us a paltry tax credit at the end of the year. The local power company still want a piece of your panel energy, legislating that the controller must be tied into the grid so they can still monitor your energy consumption. They have powerful lobbyists that will not allow an entire town to thumb their nose at the local power company and make them lose money. Heck they got pensions they have to pay!
