Go pick an address in Silicon Valley (take for example 2 College Ave, Los Gatos). Set the monthly electric bill to $125. The calculator recommends a 4.25 kW installation, which has a 20 year NPV of $12,056, if you click into the detailed analysis and check the last line.
Subtract out the $5028 Federal tax benefit, and you are still left with a $7000 20-year NPV (assuming 4% cost of capital).
Still a positive ROI over and above inflation, even without a rebate.
I guess it depends on what you count as government support.
For example if you pay $50k for your installation, you could depreciate it within 5 years or so by 85%, which reduces your tax payments in total, at a 35% tax rate, by $15k.
That's $15k saved, whether you call that government support depends on whether you think that's 'normal business depreciation' or 'solar specific fiscal policy' I guess.
Same with RECs, they're government support in the sense the government sets requirements on companies to buy them, thus creating a market for solar producers to sell them. This isn't energy being sold, it's more like a carbon tax thingy. You could see that purely as a tax on non-renewables (which imo it is), or as government support to renewables (which it's technically structured as).
So the federal tax benefit, while large, is far from the only incentive.
OK, but as an individual homeowner, I can not take depreciation, nor can I sell REC's. I'm just buying solar panels and putting them on my roof ...
... And again, to compare apples to apples, you'd have to tease apart the tax benefits given to existing energy companies over the years to get a real accounting.
You're replying to a guy who talked about 'even utility solar'. So I'm just giving the story for utility solar.
And it's import to note that the biggest solar companies right now aren't residential, but utility, so we're not talking about some niche aspect of the industry here.
And even the biggest residential solar companies their main products are leases right now, meaning they do get to depreciate their installation costs and then either let you rent the panels or buy electricity from them.
So in the vast, vast majority of installed solar panels, depreciation plays a gigantic role.
As for SRECs, you could sell them actually, don't need to be a business to do so.
Subtract out the $5028 Federal tax benefit, and you are still left with a $7000 20-year NPV (assuming 4% cost of capital).
Still a positive ROI over and above inflation, even without a rebate.