How about solar for the common folks?

Question

Recently I was answering another persons question about solar electricity when I came to the realization that although I strongly favor an extreme effort to utilize solar, it remains expensive and not practical for every home site due to trees, neighbors and regulations. However, what if our local power company bought masses of panels, installed them on local business roofs and at unused and abandoned shopping malls, maintained them and allowed each of us to buy a per cent of the cost. We could then each get a net metering reduction of our own electric bill for the % of our investment, the business would get a % for allowing its space to be used and the power company would take their %. In California, a utility is going to place 320 megawatts of panels on 2 square miles of business buildings. My idea gives us little folks a chance to participate without going broke and would drastically reduce the immediate cost of solar. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Are you ready to pay a higher electric bill to pay for all those panels? Or higher taxes to pay for them? I really doubt that your bill would actually go down. What's wrong with going neuclear?

Answer 2

This site has the same basic idea, finding residential solar panel installers without breakign the bank:

http://www.getsolar.com

Answer 3

Why don't you start a company to do that?

FWIW, I would stay away from abandoned buildings.  Things there are too likely to be vandalized or stolen.