Over the past decade the price of residential solar has dropped 64% due in large part to falling hardware costs. What would have cost over $30,000 for a standard 10-kilowatt system in the early 2010s is now around $20,000. That's a significant decrease, but not nearly enough to make full-scale solar a reasonable option for most people in the United States, where the median household income is $67,521.

Energy costs are soaring and the most recent IPCC report warns of extreme consequences if we don't act now to mitigate the effects of climate change. "The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future," IPCC co-chair Hans-Otto Pörtner said. It can feel pretty daunting to figure out what steps to take today.

Investing in renewable energies like solar is one way to significantly reduce your carbon footprint at the individual level -- and an increasing number of alternative solar services and products are hitting the residential market. Those new technologies offer more choices if you can't install a full-scale solar system or want to supplement an existing residential system. But none of them come close to replicating what you can potentially save long-term in money and energy with a whole-home system. Yet.

We need something else, an alternative to the current residential solar model in the US that promises similar carbon reduction levels while also costing much less money. And we need it now.