While the price of solar panels has decreased significantly since the 1970s, the main problem with the adoption of solar power is its intermittent nature, according to a blog post by Brian Potter.
Companies often advertise “free” solar panels and encourage consumers to purchase a system that allows them to bought electricity from the solar panels at a lower cost, but this doesn’t necessarily offer substantial savings.
Going off-grid requires enough capacity to address peak demand and enough storage to meet demand for several days of overcast weather, for example.
Being grid-tied helps offset some issues as you can sell power back to the grid when you have it to spare and buy it back later, effectively meaning you don’t need to build for peak capacity.
However, some electric companies don’t like private solar panels and might only pay a fraction of what they charge for energy, making it less financially attractive.
