Solar power is a good choice where there is no natural gas available. In cities people can run generators on gas which is not expensive on daily basis.
I give u the example...In my village I am using a small 300 Watt Solar system for approx more than two years. I spent approx Rs. 50000 on it in which electronics (Charge controller + Inverter) is designed and manufactured by myself since I am an Electronics Engineer. Believe me it is running on the same battery since last two years and now in this summer I will change battery bank in order to get more backup.
Before, I was using a petrol generator whose running cost was too high (Approx Rs. 50/hr @ Petrol rate Rs. 100/litre). But now I am satisfied that along with full time power (NO loadshedding), the running cost is only of battery bank Which when divided on years comes very less. Approx 1/3 of cost is also given u back when u change the old battery with new one.
Now come to the DC power usage:
In PWM (small sized) Inverters, the frequency is increased upto some khz for reduction in tranformer size, hence resulting in lesser losses of transformers. The no load current of such inverters is under 0.5 Ampere and this is not a big deal (very little power is consumed in converting 12VDC to 220VAC). But using such inverters makes ur solar system to run all elec equipment like TV, computers etc. It is not feasible to run every device on DC system.
