I've seen solar companies infiltrating department stores here, too. Even IKEA now has booths for solar power. But there's been a surge in big community solar farms - like one of the Dutch Wadden islands building a 6MW plant. Uncle of mine outfitted his entire farm with more solar power than he needed, so now he receives money from the energy company every month. I think that's half of the problem. Electricity here is around 18-25 eurocents ($0.20-$0.27). That's why it can pay itself back within a decade. The other half - holy shit, 12,000 kWh is insane. Average power usage here is around 4,000 kWh per household. The average U.S. household power consumption is 10,932.8 cents
Ha! Thanks for making me look at my Los Angeles power bill, because they owe me $150! In Los Angeles, with no AC and no heat, we burned about 16,000 kWh. I don't know what the penetration of natural gas is in Europe, but in most of the US, heating is not accomplished by electricity, which skews the numbers.
The apartment or the NoHo? Damn, are the faders power hungry or something? I just asked my parents, their small separated house uses around 2500 kWh a year. Heating (edit: and cooking) is through gas. Natural gas is the default here too, since it's been readily available for decades. Thanks, Carboniferous: (...well, it was readily available until the earthquakes started)