this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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At least in the USA the bigger challenge seem to be the energy company's really fighting back against residential solar. California is facing some serious changes, I don't think net metering is even an option in just municipal areas even more. I've heard around San Francisco they are going to start hitting folks with big grid connection fees every month.
In my area of North Carolina it's the same thing, with the power company doing everything it can to make switching to solar less and less worth it. Just the cost of the panels are enough to do that for most people!
Net meeting is a gift to the upper middle class and wealthy to stop them nimbying and to develop the industry. If they are complaining about not getting it on new installs, it worked.
What is needed is to stop forcing them to pay $3 to the utility and a salesman for every $0.8 the actual product costs. End any fee for approval, make the sale, install and resale prices publicly available, and the utility has to pay full retail price for any energy that could have been produced by an installed system awaiting approval.
Where I am in Colorado the struggle here is that the local city government has many regulations on what is allowed per their municipal codes to prevent solar panels from being developed in the town. If you live out of town it is good, but living in town there are enough codes that prevent the panels from being built or installed.