ETM Solar of Endicott, NY, hosted a solar house tour starting at a house in Binghamton. On Oct. 5, 2013. Before I saw where the solar panels were, I honed in on the city chickens! The home-owners also have a food garden, what looked to be bins to catch rainwater and, of course, the solar panels, set to catch the sun's rays but also discreetly hidden from street view. Inside the garage you can see an example of the array of boxes and dedicated meter for a solar panel installation. I understand that NYSEG installs a digital meter since the powers that be require it. The house meter located on the exterior wall of the house itself also has to be digital. The second house I visited was in Vestal and is a ground mount. The homeowner explained that many things he had to do to prepare the site for the installation and why he chose to not put the panels on the roof of the garage. . Both homeowners were very happy with their approximately two year old installation in terms of saving money on their electricity bills. Here's a home in Endicott with both electricity and hot water from solar on two different parts of the roofing. Proof that you don't need a "perfect" location in order to go solar. Notice in the photo of the meter that even on a semi-cloudy day, the little arrow on the left points to the left at the time I took the photo, meaning metering is going backwards thus saving the homeowner some $$.