... for the high income techies that make most of the HN audience.
Ask a normal person how they feel about paying for the heat pumps and having an extra hundred or two on their ongoing heating bill and you may get a different answer. Up to and including them not being able to cut expenses anywhere else to compensate for this.
Regulation that increases cost of living is only going to cause resentment and we already see where that leads to.
Can't do it with feel good statements, you need the authorities to support/push towards cheaper electricity. Like the Denmark poster said elsewhere on this thread. Is this going to happen globally? I somehow don't think so...
If your country has to import oil and gas there is a financial reason to change.
If you have the space to put it, you can be self-sufficient for most of the year. Equipment is VAT-free in Germany and Austria, too.
The big problem with solar, is that winter days are cold and dark, so when you need heating the most, it's the least available.
High income people living in detached houses again...
Additionally, living in shared housing does not disqualify you from having solar panels installed either - if you live in an apartment complex that's a modestly sized 2x2x2 - meaning it has 4x the surface area, and 4x the roof area, the math generally works out the same - for longer houses, it's better, for taller ones its worse, but I think there are a ton of sweet spots, but tall and skinny apartment buildings will lose out.
On the other hand, with less demand from part of the population, gas prices should ultimately start to come down a bit; if we look at straight spot prices and pure economic theory.
However, for some reason utilities don't always care about theory. And we probably want to stop using gas and oil in Europe anyway; would be smarter. (We're pretty much literally paying for wars waged against us; now and in future)
So, I'm thinking maybe some sort of subsidized replacement program; perhaps interest-free loans with government backing or some such; which can be paid back with (part of) the efficiency gains?