Scientific American: For consumers looking for cheaper, cleaner, and more local electricity generation, rooftop solar is a promising option. But even as installation costs continue to fall, the growth of distributed solar is threatened by other financial and technical barriers. Typical net metering rate structures can make it impossible for electricity providers to recover their costs in markets with a large penetration of rooftop solar. Meanwhile, solar panels can be prohibitively expensive to purchase. Even solar leasing...