Once everyone generates and stores their own electricity, the residential market will go away. This might be another 20 to 30 years off, but it is inevitable. And once factories start building Stirling engines and solar facilities into their designs, the industrial power market will collapse as well. It's a good thing.
So the residential market for purchased electricity will never go away, but a significant reduction would still be a huge win.
It might, however, go away for cottages/cabins, or other rural buildings. Many people I know have generators at their cottages because the power is unreliable enough, and given the unreliability, the grid must be pretty expensive to maintain.
I'd like to see these more widely used. I keep an eye on http://cyclonepower.com/ (who use the Rankine cycle) but nothing ever seems to come of it.
I think solar panels will be organized in farms and electricity will be delivered by wire, mostly, even for the residential market.
With a good automated system for calculating the net flows between people (maybe using bitcoin?) - it could develop into energy-network equivalent of internet. Only international and intercontinental links need support from big organizations and countries.