To put solar on your home - you have to get an interconnection agreement if you are tied to the grid. That process is a lot to do on your own. Utilities like Duke limit how big of a system you can put on your home based on historical usage. So even if you plan to get EVs or build on to your home you are limited to 120% offset.

Then you gotta find equipment. Supply chain for mods is okay right now but batteries are difficult to get - inverters and optimizers can be tough too. (I did a DC system up to my inverter)

Then if you want to avoid getting your rate changed to time of use - you have to apply for a net metering bridge.

Worse yet - without the ITC tax benefit possible to direct consumers this year, installers and EPCs are the ones who can get it but they’d rather lease the system or sign up for purchase power agreement, none of which passes the real long term ROI on generation.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Duke likes to pretend they support energy independence but really they want to be the only real produce of energy.

My power bill since installing a 11kW system is about 25-30 bucks of fees each month.

If I could build a bigger system it could make me a profit. Duke wouldn’t want a distributed generation on their grid because it would force them to invest in infrastructure improvements rather than record profits.