[geegoo]

I worked for a electric meter data analysis company that worked with local government owned utility companies. This is a complicated issue with a lot of potential reasons. My professional opinion is that yes, it often is cheaper to for municipalities to install solar in the long run, but there is a lot of uncertainty about the technology and the fragility of the proposed systems.

Depending on the energy generation, utility companies have long term fuel contracts which often work against long term investment in renewable energy generation. Local tax payers will have to pay for the deficit or potential contract penalties if the city reduces their energy generation requirements while still having a fuel purchase contract. That coupled with the investment cost of installing solar/wind generation infrastructure is a hard sell for elected officials who depend on short term impact to maintain their constituents happy.

There is also the question of legality, as some states have strict laws on who can generate electricity and who can store it/sell it. Typically the smaller and less progressive the region, the more likely they are to go towards the path of least resistance and just let the homeowner brunt the cost.

So some consumers install it for the long term gains without placing any bets on how local utilities will react, while others might do it as an investment on the property itself. These are just a few scenarios (without talking about commercial energy consumption) out of the hundreds being discussed.

It is becoming more common now for utilities to have energy surplus buy back programs that reduce the energy cost to the end user while they wait for the industry to progress past their latest infrastructure investment (a lot of local municipalities had huge infrastructure investments in the 90s / early 2000s that they are still paying for)