They'd actually make economic sense where I live, the only thing that's held me from pulling the trigger is that I want to time it with when I need to have the roof inspected/replaced.

I'm aware of the arguments about how it can be that much cheaper when deployed at mass centralized scale rather than decentralized across a bunch of rooftops, however the way the electric markets are prices is based primarily on the cost to produce the marginal supply, which is usually gas.

So while the power company might flood a bunch of solar panels trying to capture the profit between cost to generate solar vs. cost to generate using gas, those profits haven't been lowering electric costs at residential rates. If anything those costs are still climbing.

It's actually not hard to get rooftop solar to pencil out in that situation, especially if you assume even moderate growth in future electricity rates or inflation. In my own tracker it would even be superior to paying down additional principle on my home mortgage!

Admittedly it would be less of a slam dunk if the net metering was less generous around here as you'd basically be required to add battery to the mix if you weren't already. But even that just prolongs the time to payoff, it still ends up having good ROI economically speaking.

Honestly they only made economic sense in my case because of government incentives. Although if the price continues to fall, they may eventually even make sense in my area without incentives.

Electricity generation in the event of a power outage was another consideration for me.

But yeah as a techy I also just enjoy having them.

I wish that were true, but I suspect more people are doing it to be trendy/appear "green" than basing it on a system lifetime ROI calculation vs. alternatives.