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Supply and demand only influences prices when there is actual competition out there.

I'm bracing myself too for the inevitable Tesla battery revolution and see how power companies handle the competition. Municipal utilities are very dusty parts of industry and local law; desperately needs a shake-up.

How do you reconcile the greater incentive for efficiency and distributed generation vs city profit motives?

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Pair the Tesla batteries with solar cells, and there will be no competition. It will be very hard to compete with free, and we could be able to save utility costs if we no longer need to maintain miles and miles of power lines.

It's not free. You still have to pay for the batteries and the solar cell. It's a big front payment that you must amortize in many years.

And then you must pay for the new batteries or solar cells, because they break or the newer versions are more efficient.

Batteries, sure, but solar leasing was the big idea that helped alleviate the upfront cost barrier of the panels themselves.[1]

[1] http://www.solarcity.com/residential/affordable-solar-lease

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