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I think that what’s not in this article, but needs to be, is that rooftop solar in the rest of the world costs about 1/4 what it does in the US. Getting US prices down to where they are elsewhere would do wonders for closing this big gap.
The article is basically about economies of scale.
Large solar farms are much cheaper to set up per kilowatt hour of electricity produced than home-based solar panels.
But large solar farms are generally owned by corporations.
So the issue isn’t solar but again capitalism. If we had a socialized or cooperative solar farm people could invest in, rather than putting panels on their homes, we would all be better off and get our solar for cheaper.
Of course, we could just socialize the electric companies. And considering the climate crisis is an emergency (hurricanes for example), it would be within the powers of the federal government in the United States to do this.
But, the fossil fuel industry would throw a fit, and we’d see somebody like President Trump get elected because campaign donations are really what tend to determine our elections.
So, the first step should be socializing the fossil fuel industry. And then smaller electric companies.
It’s not just that; residential rooftop in the US is about 4x the cost of doing it in other countries, and would be cost-competitive with utility-scale if it was as cheap as it is elsewhere.
Part of the problem in the US is that residential solar installers have been allowed to run scams and provide no customer support. NPR did a great podcast on it: The Dark Side of Rooftop Solar