Edit: Unless you're taking advantage of tax incentives to do it at house scale. Its hard to beat the economics of just being handed free money.
There is a reason home generation wins. It's because retail prices are 3 times what the generator is paid. (That's true where I live).
So yes, in absolute terms power generated by home solar costs more than a utility generating it. But it's not 3 times more, so if you install home solar and use the power, it's always a big win. It will be the same with batteries.
The traditional forms of generating power, coal, gas, hydro and nuclear only win because home generation costs using those technologies (eg, putting a coal mine and generator in your back year) costs far more than 3 times. You can't put wind, or pumped storage in your back yard either.
But solar and batteries are different animals. They are different in other ways too. It always makes sense to over provision solar. The question is not whether to do it, but by how much. So home generators will always be looking to sell power, and since it's free selling it at 1/3 of what they would pay for the same power looks like money for jam to them. It makes you wonder how many utility generators will be left standing if solar takes over the world.
AFTER you finish paying off the financing of the source of home generation. so maybe it'll be a big win for the people in your location after you're gone???
Utility companies have to pay for distribution networks, and generally pass that cost on in the price per kWh. Which you avoid the less you use the grid -- and which then become a higher proportion of the prices the utility has to charge the more people do that.
That just has terrible results most of the time, because it means that people generally ignore or otherwise don't understand what the government is doing, which leads to all kinds of inefficiency and corruption.
But "law requires you to buy this expensive thing you don't want" is simple enough for people to understand and get mad about, and affects enough people to make politicians care.
Woah, I didn't know this. In any case, surely it's legal to have grid service to the house and simply not use it.
> I would not put it past the grid provider to come up with a minimum monthly bill
My electric company (a community owned co-op) has done this for many years. You pay $15/mo no matter what. Your power usage is billed on top of that.
Depends. It may be more profitable for utility companies, but they keep the profit of the economies of scale. It is almost never passed on to the customer.
If you DIY your own energy system, you're free to keep all the surplus generated by it through the life of the system.
It may or may not make sense depending on your location. Many utilities would prefer to make customer-owned solar a very poor financial choice thru rate design (e.g. very high minimum charges, per-kw-installed solar charges, low daytime rates relative to evening rates, wholesale-rate compensation for exported production, etc). Some succeed.
If household power purchase price doesnt change with time/generation cost, then there is not ability to act faster than the power company.