It&#x27;s not that simple. Solar is only really practical if it fits into the grid system, otherwise there&#x27;s no real point. The energy it gives you goes up and down, and not in sync with your own household needs.<p>So you need something to do with excess capacity. All by itself, units of power aren&#x27;t all that expensive. But a solar installation is very expensive. You need to amortize the cost of the installation, the people putting it in, the company developing the technology, over around 30 years before it&#x27;s really worth it.<p>Even then, normal consumers won&#x27;t bother unless it&#x27;s actually making their net energy expenditures lower. So you also need a finance company to come in and finance everything so the consumer isn&#x27;t coming out of pocket for the installation.<p>All of this is viable, only so long as the power companies are paying retail rates for excess electricity. There&#x27;s enough money so everyone gets paid. What this is all about is the power companies are suddenly deciding they want to pay wholesale for excess power. Why should they pay wholesale? They&#x27;re not buying in wholesale quantities from each consumer.<p>This sucks enough profit potential from the industry that it makes more sense for them to go elsewhere to put together a workable business model than to stick around and deal with decimated revenues.<p>The power companies are using their political muscle to stamp out competition. If they were to play fair, then they&#x27;d be forced to compete with solar. They don&#x27;t want to compete, so they&#x27;re using lobbyists to warp the political process.