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Those are all valid points.

My gripe with this particular article is that the point he makes about “banking” excess power is a lie.

One can come up with criticism of rooftop solar without having to resort to making up stuff.

Also, I don’t think the utilitie should pay you anything for the excess power you generate since they are acting as your “infinite” backup “battery”, a very valuable resource. If anything you should be paying them a fee for providing that resource.

In my area, the utility pays wholesale rate for excess generation, about 2 cents per kWh, then sells it to my neighbor for 10 to 20 times that price. Also, during peak demand, like during a heatwave, I am selling them power at small fraction of the cost of starting up “peaking plants” to meet emergency demand.

No doubt I’m getting the better deal (a free unlimited virtual battery), but it’s not a one way street. And while my neighbor might be subsidizing my power, I’m subsidizing his kids school, lunch, daycare, etc.

In my mind the best way to do rooftop solar is to do it with new house constructions. It reduces cost and as part of the house you get to include it in your 30 year mortgage. In California where the price of a house is near a million, adding a $20k rooftop solar is round off error and you save $200 a month.

True, but that's a lot of extra cost for the developer, that he may not be able to turn around and add to the cost of the house and make a decent profit off of. MAYBE as an upgrade option, but then you're gonna have very limited takers. And who's responsible when the batteries need to be replaced? That's a cost that could be as high as replacing an AC unit, if it's the good deep cycle batteries that last 10+ years but cost $4-500 each. What about the panels? Those are very expensive to replace also, and generally require fancy hazmat disposal.

But is the cost to install it worth it? Assuming your cost of $20M for the system, that gives us eight years to break even, if it saves you $200 a month in electricity (ignoring interest). If it's rolled into the mortgage, assuming 4% interest means it takes a month over ten years, at $200 a month, to break even. TO BREAK EVEN, and that ignores the opportunity cost of investing that $24M into the stock market, or even a savings account, or something else that could have actually made you money.

Unless the price of panels/install comes way down, solar just isn't really worth it usually. Unless you live out in the boonies where power is crazy expensive, or you specifically want something off-grid, the only worthwhile use for solar is maybe running a solo well pump or pond fountain or my fancy portable phone charger panel thing.

Also, I don’t think the utilitie should pay you anything for the excess power you generate since they are acting as your “infinite” backup “battery”, a very valuable resource. If anything you should be paying them a fee for providing that resource.

I doubt then utilities would not make money off of someone. Their solar buyback is probably limited to the amount of electricity they provide, so you can't overall make money from them. Plus, there's all the surcharges/fees/etc which mean they're still billing you $20-30 every month even if you use zero electricity.