As I have mentioned in other posts, I have a hundred acres of land in northern Maine that is off the grid, with no utilities available, and I am building a camp there. Obviously, solar energy is something that I would be interested in having there. Unfortunately, I am not wealthy enough to be able to afford to have a large solar system installed, although I have come across solar systems that I could afford to buy. There are some things that I have trouble wrapping my head around, and solar system installation seems to be one of them. Although I have a book on the subject, it doesn't seem like something that I would be able to do. I have considered that, perhaps if I bought a plug-and-play starter system, particularly one that could be added onto, maybe I could make some sense out of it and figure out how it works, and be able to avail myself of less expensive options in the future. I'm thinking that I could maybe even buy such a system for my house, where I would have more time to examine it, with the advantage of electric lights. Although I wouldn't be looking at replacing my electric service here, maybe I could supplement it and take some of the load off of my electric bill by running some of my appliances off of the solar system.
I am sure you have already seen this information, there is information about offgrid installation, very informative. http://www.wholesalesolar.com/DIY-solar.html I would also like to put a small system on the house. This winter has been so cold that paying the bill in this all electric house is not going to be fun.
I learned that getting solar panels and system installed are very expensive. It doesn't provide power storage. So, we may use solared power electricity when it's sunny. Otherwise, the system becomes controlling of my time and routine to maximize the solar rays available. Batteries to operate the system would be a headache and burden to maintain too.
Several people have made their own solar panels out of things like inverted aluminum pop cans, although they may not be as effective as those that are made commercially, and out of the appropriate materials. If you understand what you're doing (which I don't), I don't believe it is necessarily so expensive. People who use solar power primarily try to minimize their electrical use at night, operating out of battery power, and using appliances that are made for that, as opposed to those that were made for regular electrical outlets. But if you think of it, may years ago, before electricity, people tended to go to bed very early, by today's standards, and to get up very early, making better use of the sun.
My computer crashed since then, but unused to have a link on you tube, and had the different individual items bookmarked on eBay. It'll take a really steady hand, but buying the materials and building them yourself comes out to about half the price as buying one prebuilt.
Solar power systems rely on the battery so give the battery a priority when checking for a solar power system. There is a cheap system here for 1 KVA costing only less than $100. That includes the solar panels and the battery. But the vendor admitted that the battery is not really that reliable. I cited my UPS (uninterrupted power supply) in the office that died after 2 years. The vendor nodded. My take on the solar is that the initial cost cannot be recouped because the panel tends to break and the battery to die before you hit break even.
I really like the idea of using solar power whenever we can do that. However, as was mentioned by just about everyone, it is hard to build your own, and expensive to buy even a starter sized solar system for your home. The most interesting one that I have seen is the new one that Elon Musk is making for home use. I think that even though it is expensive also, the quality of the system should be excellent, and it would be a worthwhile investment. Musk has developed several things that use solar power, and so he seems to have a really good grasp on what is needed. Not only did he develop the Tesla cars, he has the Hyperloop transportation system, which uses a vacuum that is solar powered to transport people cheaply (and very fast) from one city to another. Then, there is the charging stations that he is installing all across the United States, and those are powered by solar and keep the charging batteries running for people who have electric powered vehicles. I think that adding even small solar powered items is a good idea. We used our little outdoor solar lights to see in the house at night after we had the bad tornados here, and the whole city lost power. We had no power for almost two weeks, and I sure appreciatd those little solar lights ! We put them out in the sunshine every day to charge up, and then brought them in at night so we could find our ay through the pitch-black house. Even though they were just the small little pathway solar lights, they helped a lot. Now, I am adding more of them around the yard, and they light things up so nicely at night. Next project is to paint some of them, and have colored solar lights glowingin the dark.