I took the average KWh/month in my electric bill for the past 12 months: 1790. Looking up the various system sizing estimates for my location in CA (3.5 sun hours per day) I come up with a freaking huge 22+kW system. Is that right?

Looking at gogreensolar.com, they don't even sell kits for systems that big, but the price for 3 7kW systems would be like $33k. Over at wholesalesolar.com, they do have systems that big starting at like $30k. Neither of these include the cost of installation. Of course, you still take the 30% federal rebate off of that, but I'm still looking at an 8-10 year break even.

So then my utility has a tool on their website to size a PV system based on your electric bills. I tried that tool, and they sized out a 12.25 kW-DC system to cover 80% of my electric bill (annual production of over 17mWh). Their cost estimate for this system is $49k (fully installed, not including rebates). They estimate a 16 year break-even.

So I don't know how I could justify going solar now. Those break-even estimates are crazy.