Solar energy wasn’t always a viable option for homeowners. Those who wanted to install solar panels on their own roofs had to purchase industrial grade systems that were prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, solar systems fell out of popularity after the energy crisis of the 1970s seemed to have concluded. We now live in a completely different environment for renewable energy products, which are more popular than ever. There are a few reasons why homeowners are choosing to go solar, most of which are practical and economic rather than ideological.

There are a couple of financial incentives that have been mandated at the federal level. The most popular is the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which offered up to a 30% tax credit to homeowners for the installation of solar hot water and photovoltaic panels, as well as wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps. This tax credit was extended by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or 2009 to apply until the end of 2016.

The Energy Policy Act also enforces at a federal level (for public utilities) a policy that was previously applied at the discretion of different states and municipalities: net metering. With net metering, residents who install a grid-tie solar system can have any surplus electricity produced routed back to the public utility, so that they were only charge for their net power usage (i.e. the amount consumed offset by the amount produced).

The advantages of solar energy are not only limited to government incentives. The cost of solar panels as dropped significantly as solar panel manufacturers has tapped into the consumer market. Early solar panels were manufactured by small start-ups that had to sell their limited production runs to the vertical market to be profitable. Many of these companies still exists, but have been supplanted by the likes of BP, Siemens and Kyocera, who can produce solar panels at economies of scale that make residential versions viable for the first time.

Finally, solar power is completely clean—or at least produces energy with zero emissions. The manufacturing of solar panels does produce greenhouse gases, but once they’re made, they produce energy with no emissions for the rest of their lifecycle. This cannot be said of most mainstream power plants once they’re online. Just as importantly, the energy they produce is completely renewable, unlike the power from coal-burning plants. The lifetime value of each solar panel has economical and ecological dimensions that make them increasingly compelling for homeowners.