I have friends that have built a house around the 49th parallel or the same latitude as the US Canada border. The house is located in the country and placed on the property to get the maximum solar gain for the passive collectors. Large masonry and rock collector. Solar water heaters and solar PV with battery back up and grid tie for the rare days where the batteries are charged and the sun is high. The house is very efficient in terms of its ability to collect heat from the sun in the winter and reflect it in the summer. The water heaters are efficient enough to boil water in the summer and 1 panel must be covered in the summer. The PV Will never pay back the installation cost or ongoing maintenance and battery replacement. It would have been better cost benefit to install a generator but they are very green oriented so choosing between a generator and PV with battery was a philosophical choice rather than a cost and recovery choice. They are subject to power failures and sometimes days may pass before they get it restored in a rural area.
I wonder how solar PV can payback in Seattle? unless the application is so low power how is it ever going to payback the investment?
The house is very efficient and I think that they will get all their heat from passive sources including cooking but the electricity from solar is pretty poor at this latitude.
Sign me wondering the value of solar north of 40?