Always good to hear from another solar customer who ‘gets it.’
And the way the utility can control you is with the grid-sell. So buy equipment that has the ability to turn off grid-sell if the regulations change to not being in your favor. If you don't put power onto the grid, it's not the utility's business whether or not you have solar to reduce how much you pull from the grid. Or another way to say it, it's not in the utilities sight how much power you use if a lot of the power you use is homemade power (not pulled from the grid).