I live in LA and converted my house last year to a 4.8 Kwh grid tied solar electrical system.  I must say that my dealings with the local utility company (LADWP) were relatively painless.  I researched, solicited quotes and finally chose a well established, local solar electrical installation company that handled all interfacing with LADWP.  My system was inspected and approved in a timely fashion.  My installation company handled all the paperwork and filed for my rebate which covered about 45% of the total cost.  Since installation, the system has worked flawlessly and my total electrical bill in the past 10 months has been about $19.  That includes the added electrical demands of an electric truck and an energy inefficient teenager.  My only complaint has been in my attempts to add a back up battery source to cover my essential needs when the grid goes down.  Most companies quote a $10K and up price for the feature and no rebate is available.  This is roughly a third of the cost of the total system and many of the companies do not seem very interested in doing this work.

It is true that it does take some effort and diligence to go the solar route but it is not overly difficult if one uses very experienced local installation companies.  It is like any home upgrade project, the homeowner should do his homework and research the companies and their track record with the local utility company.  Most reputable solar installation companies will be happy to let you speak to previous customers.  As for the utility companies, many are not in the business of doing the right thing for the environment.  Money and profit margins are the bottom line for most.  Despite this, our elected officials sometimes manage to do the right thing such as allocating money to subsidize solar installations.  It is our job as the voting public to keep the pressure on these elected officials to do the right thing!

Long Beach once sent out five (5) inspectors, one of which threw a box on a completely unrelated whole-house fan by accident, potentially causing a fire.  Cities as well as utilities are hostile to solar power.

The reason, of course, is CONTROL.  Those in power like to control electric power.

Solar systems are not necessarily independent of the grid, they push extra electric into the grid during the daytime, which gives credits for off-peak charging of Electric cars and for other uses.

Distributed solar eletric power generation takes the load off the grid during peak daytime periods, producing the power where and when it’s needed and reducing the need for high-voltage transmission lines.

And that’s the key.  Utilities are, really, just electric power transmission companies, since the PUC took away their generators (via “deregulation”), so the more solar homes, the less value in the long-distance tranmission lines.

Solar makes the home energy-neutral, and drops off the billing system. 

So they make it difficult to “go solar”.  It’s really a case of “power to the people”.  Some in power don’t like that.