When I bought my house here in S FL, I started getting a ton of those flyers in the mail that comes every time a house is sold or bought. You know, the gutter cleaning, painting, concrete rework, etc.. One of the ones that actually showed up at my door was from a solar panel company. This is basically what they told me during that brief conversation.
The average person sees a 50% reduction in their electric bill. Because my house is on the Intracoastal and there are no high rise structures between it and the beach 1/4 mile away, I would most likely see my electric bill eliminated completely. And if there was additional energy that went back to the grid, I would receive a check for it. The entire setup was about $70,000 but there were plenty of gov't grants and sponsored subsidies that would bring it down to where I only had to pay about $10,000 out of pocket. The solar panels had their own warranty and insurance so that it would not affect any premium I had on my home already.
Sounds good? Well I said I would think about it and started asking around and people from work had gotten theirs done in the past. From talks with various people, the general consensus was that :
It does reduce your electric bill. But not totally. The few times that extra energy was brought back, the electric company didn't send you a check, they instead issued a credit for future use. If your home is the only one (or two) around in the section that has solar panels, then you will see a remarkable reduction in your electric bill. The more homes that have them, the less you will see. Even though the extra homes are generating their power, often enough to supply the grid, you don't see that much of a savings anymore. A medium size neighborhood (HOA) may see a 20% reduction each month. It would be more than that but as stated by the OP, they actually raise the price of the utility if you have solar panels. It's a gouge, but they are not going to let you get anything for free. Today it is just not worth it to go the solar panel route.
That being said, I did have 2 solar panels installed that are strictly for my pool. They power nothing else but the pool and it's components. Heater, vacuum, jets, etc.. This probably saves me $100 a month on electricity fees.
TL;DR - solar panels and their benefits are being restricted and regulated so they don't reach full potential.
