Both approaches make sense. Large utility solar installations are a great way to generate electricity, but there are transmission losses to consider and there

Both approaches make sense. Large utility solar installations are a great way to generate electricity, but there are transmission losses to consider and there just aren't enough large scale solar projects yet to supply all the power that's consumed. Rooftop solar gives you a way to be less dependent on the local utility for something you need to live a modern lifestyle. If you live somewhere where electric rates are high or power outages are common or most of the electricity comes from burning coal, you can now work around that by generating electricity locally. It's sort of like storing a file locally versus storing it "in the cloud". Both approaches will probably work, but you might choose one or the other based on some weighted combination of reliability concerns, privacy concerns, available bandwidth, and whether you want to share the file across multiple computers or multiple users.