If it's anything like my slice of the southwest, what works there may not work for a majority of Americans.

Even when it gets very hot in the day(100+), the nights almost always drop down to 63 or less. Meaning if you have a well sealed house you can suck up cold air during the night and ride it out in the day and have very low cooling costs. Coupled with low humidity from an arid environment means you can also let the house get hotter before it feels like it is time to turn on the AC.

This area has few days over 100 but does see relatively cool nights. It is an ideal area for this. I would say from southernmost california to southernmost texas, this basic setup is pretty workable and that includes something around 50 million americans. Regulator hurdles in some places make it impossible though. Costs are going to scale up mostly in line with the heating/cooling requirements and cloudiness of your area.

My panels are ground mounted and pointed in the ideal direction. I think this contributes to their efficiency because the ground helps cool them during the hottest periods but it is a tricky thing to nail down. On a previous home I had roof mounted panels and they seemed to perform much worse, difficult to identify the exact reason though.