Making electricity is probably one of the hardest DIY tricks.
It is hard to compete with a utility. The Germans were spending something like 55 eurocents per KWH in a commercial PV setup the last time I saw an article on it. Any hobby setup will undoubtedly be a lot more expensive.
The thing that you can do with solar, pretty cheap is to just trap the heat and do something with that. Domestic hot water seems to work well. Pool heating is my big solar project. It works pretty well. I am down right now because my collectors were on the part of the house I tore down for the addition but I will have them back up soon, maybe this week. The innovation comes with the controller. The trick is to make it as simple as possible and still have good functionality
