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"It seems obvious to me that investor-owned utilities were forcing those who can't afford to own and operate a natural-gas power plant to purchase overpriced power from those who can..."

Are you sure it's just that as more solar comes online, less natural gas gets burned and so profits for the investor-owned utility drop, while the price for electricity remains the same?

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I doubt that commercial generators are making anywhere close to 22 cents a kilowatt hour at noon on a sunny summer day. They'll turn on their gas turbines later in the day when solar output has dropped and the instantaneous market rate increases.

Homeowners should be paid lots of money if they can produce power at peak demand times, incentivizing the installation of storage. This is what it will take if we really want to turn down the natural gas generators.

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