There's a few points about your solar array.
You installed during the time of gov't rebates/subsidies. There's a financial cost of the money spent to install the solar. It costs both you and taxpayers.
Since you have a power bill, you're using the power grid and all its facility cost when the solar grid is down. Your billed usage likely doesn't pay for your facility use.
In short, your energy use is subsidized. Solar/ renewable power is only as real as its subsidies & billing riders.
Addendum... One can't compete with economics of scale the utility has to generate power. Kw vs Kw. ... Off grid electricity is only economical when the utility power connection is too far away that transmission cost outweighs the energy cost.
Hosspuller,
I find errors of fact and understanding of how distributed energy resources work in your description of my array.
First, ALL energy resources are to some degree subsidized, rebated or credited
for investment in some manner. The gas in your car, the diesel in your tractor and most every kind is either tax-advantaged or investment stimulated buy our powers that be. The natural gas in your furnace is too.
Second, EVERY electric bill I've ever gotten says:
"...49% of your bill refers to power plant costs, 12% to high voltage line
costs, and 39% local wires..." (never mind Basic charges, and a sundry list
of other charges that I do not escape by having solar)
So I do pay for infrastructure.
The power company does not pay me for my investment in solar, depreciation,
maintenance and monitoring.
The thing about DER (distributed energy resource) is that it imparts or injects or
puts online electricity that the utility does not have to produce.
This power, I might add, is even more 'correct' than utility power. The hardware
that regulates and makes safe the solar generated DC power and even corrects some of the AC power factor variance, the voltage variance's found in delivered power. And the excess power we deliver does not have to be purchased by the utility
Who is subsidizing who?
My facts counter your beliefs.
regards,
R