Rooftops are the best place for solar panels— look at Hawaii. They have given proper credit for individuals to install them (and MOST have), so no new power plants needed. The “grid” is charged by thousands of independant roof-top installs in any given town around Maui where my friend lives (the last 30 years). It works and no nature impact as the roofs are already there and look as good with panels as with out.
Putting solar on a rooftop increases R factor in hot places like Kansas too (where I am one of 750 grid tied installs out of 450,000 customers, sadly). It makes sense in so many ways and there are no transmission losses when we power MOST of our own home’s needs in summer from 50 ft away (when the sun is shining of course). We also chose an East/West array for our PV system to better “fit” the needs of the grid WHEN we are producing electricity (with 1/2 our production coming from the west array to off-set “peak demand” times for AC use- the #1 use of electricity in summer here).
But Wall Street HATES solar when it cut’s into coal and nuke plant profits and so most power companies the last decade have fought to screw us on the credits. Kansas finally got a decent governor who stopped our dumb* electric company from charging “demand” charges (and other penalty actions they tried to use) against we FEW solar users. But damage is done sadly, and little solar is happening around these parts.
So for the most part, the big energy companies DID effectively shut down solar here in the Midwest. They’ll take their energy credits (and they do get MANY millions a year) to build thousands of windmills and charge customers a premium for “wind energy”. Meanwhile, my PV system has been in service four years this August and it’s paid about 1/2 of its cost to date (after tax credits were figured in). With a 10 year warranty on my inverters and 25 years on the panels, we hope to break even in the next 3-4 years then it’s all gravy money wise (*until we upgrade gear— but the panels have a great lifespan and inverter cost isn’t much compared to the initial install cost so I think we’re good for the long-term).
If 100k roof tops in our market were online today (as was the plan 10 years back), we really would be making a positive impact. But it always goes back to the problem of scale and if you don’t hit a tipping point, you aren’t doing a LOT of good— but at least we are doing a “little” good
And, I OF COURSE am waiting for Tesla (and co.) to get batteries cheap enough to build a power-wall. Today, with my soldering iron, ranch engineering skills, and available building to house batteries… going off grid would STILL cost me about $12k (or more if I want MORE than 3-4 days of back-up for dark, stormy times). I’d have to update my inverters, buy batteries AND add 10 more panels (in a south array). My largest electric bill is December as I have no panels facing south, so to go year-round I’d have to spend about what I did on my initial install (approx $15k, and all DYI here so I didn’t pay a contractor the extra $6-8K for a typical system my size at 8500kw).
But if we get to $1 Panny Bs, I probably would upgrade and install DIY batteries and new “hybrid” inverters as I’d save another $600 - $800k a year off the electric bill. But needing about 5000 batteries, at $2 each today… it’s not worth doing (yet).