Ah, I researched it for a few years before getting started on big projects. For awhile I just did single 12v battery and 300w of solar panel kind of setups.. But now my two arrays are much bigger and serious builds.
Not sure how its bad for the environment. I guess trenching for cables is not good.
Yeah wind energy probably is not much better, from what I have read using solar is the way to go for cost saving.