I wouldn’t be surprised if the increase can be explained by those weaning off the grid in the event that the dictator starts a war, crashes the economy and declares martial law.
The opposite. The people like Solar City promoting solar are pure scammers. First they collect our tax money (not the homeowner). Second they sell the unreliable solar power back to the power company for full retail price. Instead of we ratepayers paying 4 cents for reliable power from a real power provider we pay 14 cents for someone to maybe give us some power at some point, but not when we need it the most.
(the exception is in the dessert SW where the sun always shines and the power can be immediately used for A/C.)
As mentioned above the unsolved problem is batteries. There are only two kinds of solar installations: the ones with batteries and the scams.