You aren't going to get anything cheaper than your $40-50/ month, and the building of solar panels creates substantial amounts of toxic waste. Do you have much wind where you live?

It was based on the premise that electric rates were going to soar. They were offering loans at 10.5% to pay for the panels. (Yeah right!) We wouldn't have recouped our up-front investment for 20 years.

And there is much wind here. It's moaning as I type. But we own a postage stamp-sized lot, so no room for wind power. We barely had enough room for the new septic tank last year - which is where all our money is going for the next 5 years.

Unless the solar farm was going to run power lines directly to your home, your electricity would still have been provided by the local power company.

Did some google searching and found this article:

"Porter notes with sarcasm the difficulty from a financial standpoint: "Oh, it's a great investment! It's only $6,000 to buy it, and we're getting ten to twelve dollars a month back. That means I won't live long enough to recover it. But we're doing it to support the city.""

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865560551/If-you-build-it-will-they-come--Solar-farm-fails-to-attract-buyers-in-St-George.html?pg=all

Wind turbines are getting smaller:

http://www.gizmag.com/the-archimedes-liam-f1-urban-wind-turbine/32263/

It keeps getting better.
And thanks for the vindication on the solar farm investment. If we had money to play with, I guess it could be considered as a charitable donation. It seems we made the right choice for our situation and budget.