Free-market to decide if we prefer fossil fuels, solar power, or nuclear power? I think it's a great idea.
Whatever happened to that company?
Making energy more affordable is counterintuitive to the Green's cause, which is to strangle evil America's prosperity.
Whether solar is economically viable is likely to be situational. For example, the economic viability of solar electricity in rural areas would improve if stationary fuel cell generators ran on propane negating the need for batteries to cover night time. The combination would eliminate expensive line maintenance costs where trees are a constant problem (about $1000 per year per parcel in some places).
I've read a few articles in Home Power magazine about people who went the solar electric route and were able to get a time-of-day meter for both their own use and what they sold back to the utility. The price for peak vs off-peak on that meter was a multiple of two or three.
I think that consumers should have the option to "buy" electricity from whichever source they want. A household could choose solar, wind, hydro, fossil, etc and pay a rate based upon their decision. That money would then be used to develop those sources of electicity.
This would allow environmentalists to put their money where their mouth is.
It will also be expensive as all hell since the price mechanism will be "liberally" used to allocate scarce supplies.
There's hydro plants that have auxilliary reservoirs that are used for exactly that. The use off peak surplus power to fill the reservoirs, and then release it to power the turbines during peak hours.