They seem to be an ordinary solar company, you buy the solar system with upfront cash or a loan, and make loan payments (or lose income from other investments) instead of utility payments. They make the claim of payback in 5 to 10 years, which my numbers say is totally bogus -- in my opinion possibly even bordering on fraud, but I would be happy to see them justify those numbers.

CitizenRe says -- and they are backing it up by paying for the system rather than having the customer pay for it -- that they will get the cost of systems down to $1.50 per peak watt, which really does pay for itself.

I should add, by the way, that in California, where a high-use house pays a very high rate per kwh, over 30 cents/kwh, solar can pay for itself at least down to the baseline. It just can't yet pay for itself at the baseline rate and definitely not the national average 8.4 cents/kwh rate.