I've been tracking the state of alternative fuel cars pretty heavily since October 2010 but the big earthquake in Japan in March 2011 really put things in perspective for me. That week before the full story (will there ever be a full story) on the status of the nuclear plants which were affected by the tsunami was known I thought "geez, what can I do to wean us off nuclear energy". So I decided to look into what the state of solar was since I don't see dumping my multiple computers, refigerators, mobile phones, etc. any time soon.
I looked online at some of the national solar installers (www.1bog.org and www.solarcity.com) - typed in my address and electrical usage, etc. and was pleased to find that my house was well suited for a solar system. And I was even more pleased to learn about all of the federal and state incentives which make the project more affordable.
I called a number of local installers as well as the two national ones above and set about distilling the competing proposals into something which I could understand. In the end nothing was compelling me one way or the other so I asked a friend who recently had panels installed and he recommended a particular brand and panel due to their high efficiency. I went back to the installers to see who could supply such a system and that was that.
For me if the system is going to be operable for 20 years it makes sense to go with the most efficient one (within reason). Besides I didn't know if I was getting a "Hyundai" or a "Cadillac" (no offense intended). I calculated the payback to be linear even though the up-front cost was higher. So thank you
Tom for the good advice.
[above - my roof before work begins]
panels are in place as well as the 
inverter, new meter and web-base monitor.
data monitor requires a password to access, so you'll have to take my word for it. We've had rain every day (but the first day) since the system was installed! Where is the sun?
