I don't like the Koch brothers. And decentralized solar will surely become a large part of any future energy plan. That said, this article is also pretty unfai

I don't like the Koch brothers. And decentralized solar will surely become a large part of any future energy plan. That said, this article is also pretty unfair to the utilities. They're totally not just pulling the implementation costs of decentralized solar production out of their asses. It's a real thing. The swing towards decentralization, without the increase in decentralized energy storage means utilities still have to keep significant amount of plants sitting around to deal with solar irregularities. Maybe the costs are exaggerated, but they're surely there. And their arguments are largely sound. If there is a cost to decentralizing, you have a choice of how to spread that cost around. Tautologically, if you do not place that cost completely on the backs of those decentralizing, then you are increasing the burden on those not participating. Now, it's clearly a complicated topic. There is potential for net system savings given a large scale move towards decentralization. But there's also easily a potential for net system increases. And honestly, nearly none of us are equipped to actually answer that question, unless you happen to work in the industry. And given the complex profiles of North American utilities across the continent, it's not even a given that what holds for one location will hold for another. So, that was rather long winded, but the point is that yes, there are shenanigans going on. But decentralized solar isn't all sunshine and lollipops, and adding some sort of surcharge/fee/tax on feeding back into the network may be the right course of action.