other issue is there also isn't grid infrastructure to support it and building grid infrastructure to handle that kind of capacity in a city is a hell of a lift. I think the problem with utilities when it comes to localized solar is if it is going to backfeed into their grid, their distribution is not designed to manage or handle that additional generation.
Several years ago I’d read that a new building in downtown Portland had solar installed (to be “green”) but it would take about 80 years to recoup the cost of installation/solar tech
Edit: 109 years. From the a 2018 article:
“It's the new Multnomah County Courthouse, a 17-story, $325 million, state-of-the-art public edifice that will include 44 courtrooms and new offices for the Multnomah County district attorney.
And it has another pricey feature: a state-mandated solar energy system that will take more than a century to pay for itself.
An Oregon Department of Energy report shows Multnomah County will spend $6.6 million on what the state calls green energy technology, or GET, investments at the courthouse. The investments include a $1.47 million rooftop solar system, special insulation and oversized windows.
The estimated annual value of the solar power produced, according to figures the county provided to the state: $13,424.
That means it will take 109 years for taxpayers to recoup their investment in the courthouse's renewable energy features.
"It's ludicrous," says Jerry Milstead, a construction manager who's worked on three projects in which a public agency refused to comply with the state's solar energy requirements.
The extraordinary cost of complying with the state mandate raises at least two important questions: Does the mandate make sense if a project can never recoup its costs? And if not, at what point do environmental features come at too steep a cost to taxpayers?
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Its payback is so low because the building is located on Portland General Electric's downtown power grid, which cannot accept solar energy from buildings. (The electricity is instead being shunted to power the lights on the nearby Hawthorne Bridge.)
Some public entities have looked at the low returns and refused to go along with the state requirement.”
