Solar panel installation is generally regarded as a daunting, expensive undertaking. Homeowners have to have the capital as well as the space and are typically looking at a $30,000 investment they can’t take with them when they move.

Clarian, a U.S.-based start-up, has a simple answer for the average Joe who’d like to stop the electricity meter from spinning forward.

The company has created a micro-inverter, which it refers to as the power module.

Its patented device allows clients to plug solar panels into a regular outlet at their homes and convert it into useable electricity, effectively slowing the meter down.

The system, which they’ve named the Sunfish, is going through safety inspections and tests now and should be available in the spring of 2011, said Chad Maglaque, the company’s president.

It will be affordable and easy, Maglaque explained to a number of news outlets this week.

Calrian’s goal, Maglaque said, is for a homeowner or even a renter to be able to go down the street to his or her neighborhood home-improvement store and pick up a home-solar kit.

“You bring it home and plug it in, just like a refrigerator, and it will cost about the same,” Maglaque told the New York Times.

The starter kit, which will include the inverter and one solar panel is expected to cost between $600 and $800 and produce enough energy to cover the cost of lighting with energy-efficient bulbs in the average home.

A full Sunfish kit, which will include five panels, will cost $3,000 to $4,000 and should provide about 1/8 of the energy consumed in an average American home.

“This is about slowing the meter down and having an impact,” Maglaque told the New York Times, “not getting the meter to run backwards, because if that’s your goal it’s going to cost you $30,000 to $40,000, which not many people can afford.”

While the portable system won’t produce enough energy for families to go off-grid or turn the dials backward on their meters, it is a more cost-effective solar solution.

Maglaque told CNN that Clarian’s Sunfish system will cost about $3.50 to $4.50 per watt compared with traditional turn-key systems that cost between $6 and $8 per watt.

The kit will also be Wifi ready so that system owners will be able to monitor and control it remotely.