Jennie said:
Would it be cheaper to build a solar passive design home and use energy eff
stuff than go PV?
I can't seem to understand your question there. Passive solar does
not produce electricity. Solar PV does not do very well heating
water or keeping your house warm. These are two completely different
things. I don't even know where building a house comes in.
Ok, that said, there are some obvious observations I (a complete
non-expert) can make.
A well designed home is always going to be better than a badly
designed home. A home designed to be energy efficient and to make
the most of the sun, wind and local climate is going to be much
better than one that is not. Well made homes are usually more
expensive to build than poorly made ones.
Solar PV is expensive (right now). It will not be cheaper than
grid power, if you have grid power. It can be cheaper than grid
power if the power company wants inordinately huge amounts of
money to hook your house up.
Investing in energy efficiency is usually many times cheaper than
buying more power, or buying bigger PV systems. This is especially
so when talking about off-grid PV systems because PV is expensive.
Anthony