Headlines tell us of reports which show that utility-scale solar energy is much less expensive than rooftop solar.
I assume this means that rooftop is more expensive in terms of $ to build the system per watt/hour produced.And I have no reason at all to doubt that this is true.
However, if you compare the cost to the consumer per watt/hour, presumably some people can save with rooftop. And presumably those numbers are not in these reports, nor are numbers to do with net metering.
I don't claim to know everything about solar energy, or utilities vs rooftop. Far from it. I'm having a very hard time finding information, and it seems that in the past decade or so, intentionally-confusing jargon to do with solar and utilities has grown at a monstrous rate.
I'm sure that utilities which are private and primarily concerned with pleasing their shareholders would much rather sell electricity to a consumer than have that consumer generate his own, or even compete on a level playing field, generating an excess and selling that excess back to the grid at fair rates. I'm also sure that such privately-held utilities would like for people to believe that rooftop is an option only for very wealthy people, and not even try to become better-informed.
The word "utility" means "the quality of being useful or helpful," or "Something which is useful or helpful." I am quite certain that some utilities are very different than others. But, the ones who don't even try to serve the common good when they can make greater profits instead: should we even call them "utilities"?
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