In fact, a just-released report finds that for owners of single-family homes, solar power’s likely a better investment than plunking hard-earned cash into the Standards & Poor’s 500 stock index; that index has returned about 6.6 percent per year over the last 25 years. The report, Going Solar in America: Ranking Solar’s Value to Consumers in America’s Largest Cities, doesn’t just detail the benefits of homeowners’ investment in solar, either. It also walks them through the process of evaluating what a solar purchase can do for their personal bottom line. And it connects them to resources like EnergySageand Geostellar that can help them find solar installers and financing at competitive prices.

But maybe the report’s most important contribution is its finding that in 46 of the country’s 50 largest cities, buying an average-sized, 5-kilowatt solar power system for a single-family home and financing it at 5 percent over 25 years is the smart financial move for people looking to cut their electric bills and get profitable and stable returns on their investments. If the environmental, public health and job-creation benefits weren’t enough, we can now add financial gain as another reason that solar makes “cents.”