[Borodog]

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Very interesting. I take it you mean that the solar roof on a house could supply a house's entire energy needs, or at any rate the great majority of it?

There are already somewhat odd arrangements regarding homeowner-generated electricity with some plants. In some, the homeowner can sell back some of his energy to the power company for credits, but they can only be used at particular times, etc. So it winds up that the homeowner can generate and transfer much more than he needs, but never really make a dime off it except insofar as the energy he saves. Whatever direct profit is to be made is kept as a freebie by the power company. If a whole lot of homes can start generating a great deal of energy, even surpluses, I can see some interesting lobbying fall-out as homeowners try to rationalize the process of purchasing and selling power from power companies, and power companies try to find some way to keep it so that either all the profit or as much as possible is strictly going to them.

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"Homeowners" cannot make a coherent lobbying group (distributed costs, concentrated benefits yo). The players making the photovoltaics might, but they won't be able to compete in the political bribery game with the power companies, which are some of the largest companies in the world.