[Baeocystin]

We're starting to see things shift away from simple panel installs on a home being as quite a good deal as they were. They still make economic sense, but the caveats are coming. When we got our system in 2015 (Bay Area, California), the full tax credit and rebate system was in effect, which wound up shaving more than a third of the cost off of the total system price. Then, we were able to get on a rate plan (PG&E E7) that paid us quite well for our overproduction.

A year later (2016), PG&E 'retired' the E7 plan, as it was too beneficial for home solar users. We're now on the E6, which is not as good, but still better than the straight TOU plans PG&E currently offers. Next year, even the grandfathered E6 plans are going to go away, and solar customers will be on a time-of-use plan that extends peak hours until well past dark, making it again more difficult to recover solar's cost as a homeowner.

This will be able to be offset to some degree by systems like Tesla's PowerWall (I don't have one yet, will consider it in the coming years) but it's definitely a game where the utilities have a love/hate relationship with people who own their own systems.