I looked at solar panels, and I am yet to be convinced that they make ecological sense.
I see a lot of wittering from the brain dead people at the BBC on SP's and how "the government should make them cheaper", alas being arts grads they see cost as simply the extortion of multi nationals.
Sad to say, a big chunk of their cost is energy input. Most cells are silicon based, made by procesess not unlike microprocessors.
They need to be very pure to work, and then doped with small amounts of very poisonoous substances. So nasty are these chemicals that billions are having to be spent on trying to fix the groundwatr in the areas where they've been made.
The "very pure" level is achieved by a process that is in effect taking sand, and melting in, then letting it cool down a bit, then metling it.
This happens repeatedly.
Solar cells have to be left outside (surprise :)
And that is bad for them, since they don't like rain or even heat. They also become less effective if dirty. Hence desert solar cells are actually much less efficient than you might think.
Thus it's really hard with solar cells even to get back as much energy as was used to make the damn things.
Storing electricity is very hard, and there exists no method known to man to do it efficiently. This is awkward for a power source that works during the day.
It is however improving, the optimistic curve I saw recently showed solar cellls being cheaper than oil around the turn of the century.
It assumed of course oil prices going up, and the few % a year improvement in cell efficiency to continue and not flatten off as you'd expect.
However rhere is a good argument for cells, if you are rich. We observe gross breakdown in an average western society occurs about every two centuries.
Thus if you have £10K to spare you can ensure a low grade power source that does not require your society to distribute energy to you. Cells can work for years without maintenance.