I was not talking about the completely off grid case at all. Maybe I misunderstood the article. I was talking in terms of grid-connected solar installs, which I

I was not talking about the completely off grid case at all. Maybe I misunderstood the article. I was talking in terms of grid-connected solar installs, which I feel just make more sense. What happens if you get a cloudy week? You have no power until the sun shines again... or have to fire up your inefficient generator (the existence of which may in fact negate any savings anyway... because price and inefficiency at small scale of generation). It could be my bias showing too... I'll admit that. However, there are interesting regulatory consequences here. Various levels of government have regulations in place that are designed to protect the consumer, but also put a strain on utilities. In a very large number of places, the power company is only allowed to charge a certain rate or less. This rate is partly based on building out the infrastructure for all houses, businesses, etc in the region, and assuming certain usage values. They are also required to make power available to anyone in those areas. They are also required to provide power under certain conditions, regardless of the customer paying (e.g. they can't shut off power in the winter in many places, because that could kill someone). The utility being constrained by the rules in these places must figure out how to operate profitably (being a publicly traded company in many cases) with these constraints. So, if suddenly everyone starts going off-grid, they are still required to sell at a certain rate or lower, still required to be able to provide power to everyone, and being told that they can't necessarily charge enough for that service, because a lot of people will just go off-grid. It is a sticky situation, and until operating models and regulations can be worked out to account for wide-spread off grid people, it is kind of a catch-22 for everyone. I don't want my power to go out because the utility can't afford maintenance because they can't charge me what they need to for reliable service, because half of my neighbors are off-grid now. Basically, the question is: if you were under regulation to act a certain way, and those regulations were based on assumptions, wouldn't you be against allowing behavior that breaks those assumptions without a change in your regulatory responsibility?