A few years ago I looked at putting solar panels on my roof.
Both the company who roofed my house, and my insurance company - said it voided any warranty / claims against future roof damage if a solar panel was installed
Installing a solar panel on a roof is not exactly expensive, complex, or difficult. Virtually every house in my neighborhood has them.
It might comparatively more efficient/cheaper per watt to build solar on the ground or on large commercial structures, but that doesn't change the economics for individual home owners, which in many parts of the world are already positive.
Money is fungible and not unlimited. A dollar given to you by your neighbors in their taxes to subsidize you would have gone much, much further if the money would have been spent to build solar by your power utility.
Also, it can be politically and technically expedient to provide incentives, even if it is not the theoretically most efficient use of that money. For example if it increases acceptance for renewables in the broader population or jump starts an industry (as it has in Germany).
>Rooftop solar photovoltaic installations on residential buildings and nuclear power have the highest unsubsidized levelized costs of energy generation in the United States. If not for federal and state subsidies, rooftop solar PV would come with a price tag between 117 and 282 U.S. dollars per megawatt hour. …
https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-leveliz...
It is understandable that anyone getting free money thinks it is good. But if the less well off people (renters, etc.) learn that they are paying more for power to subsidize wealthier residents (when that money could have gone a lot further if spent on other solar projects) - don't you think that might lower enthusiasm for government subsidizing the move away from fossil fuels? This sort of reverse Robin Hood policy hurts everyone in the long run.
As for the renters: many of them currently have decided to buy small plug in PV sets, since their installation has been allowed under German law recently. No incentives for those, either.
And I’ll repeat myself: incentives can have valuable political goals that have nothing to do with cost effective buildout of solar. In Germany, these incentives have contributed massively to improving popular sentiment towards PV and acceptance of government subsidies for renewables generally.
I suspect the cost differences between ground based solar installed by a utility and consumer rooftop solar aren't really that different in Germany. Most of the cost of rooftop solar are the soft costs, with the bulk often being the labor costs for the work on the roof. The costs for the actual panels is very low these days.
>...In Germany, these incentives have contributed massively to improving popular sentiment towards PV and acceptance of government subsidies for renewables generally.
To repeat myself, I do understand that people like getting free money. In terms of public opinion, I see this survey that was done on the energy transition: https://andel.dk/wp-content/uploads/Andel-Holding-European-s...
>...The share of positive citizens varies across countries from 45% to 80%. Croatia and Denmark are the most positive, while the Czech Republic, Germany and Estonia are the most negative.
When grid scale batteries drop in price, the substations can also store energy. Then the feeder lines only ever need to support the base load power draw.
Solar is so cheap, that even in off grid installations, the battery bank can be a fraction of what it previously would have been sized for. Modern batteries can be charged much faster and workloads can be shifted to the sunny part of the day.