Yes, the power company has to pay you if you generate more electricity than you use, but they only pay you at the rate of the cheapest available power, usually hydroelectric, which costs only a few cents per kw hr. Still, you are saving several hundred dollars a month if you come out a net zero in generation.
Thats not true. It depends on where you live. For instance, TVA will pay for solar at a rate well above all others...b/c its green and b/c its law. Solar installers can make the numbers work for that reason only.
In my state, they don’t pay you for your excess, but they will deduct from your bill. So if you generate power during the day but don’t use it, and then use the exact same amount of power at night, your bill will be zero.
But if you use even less than you produce, you don’t get paid.
Would allow me to earn back a tiny fraction of my tax dollars that Obama poured into companies making the solar panels.
I think you have it backwards, I think they are required to pay at the rate for surge generation, not base generation, which is the higher rate.
Residential net metering in my state does not allow excess generation sold onto the grid. So-called “Net Zero” is as far as it can go. So, there’s no motivation to put more panels up than the electric demand of a given residence might be. There are different arrangements for selling power onto the grid, but not under residential service.