Which is amusing, because you already pay the tax in the form of variable rate usage pricing that is higher than it needs to be. This is the problem with making hidden subsidies explicit -- people suddenly don't like the subsidy anymore.
So they are trying to stem the tide of the rich leaving by making them continue to bear the cost of subsidizing the poor.
Instead of playing games with those on solar, they should just straight up call it what it is so it is more explicit.
No, they're trying to prevent competition. They run power plants too, and they'd rather you bought electricity from them rather than sold it to them.
That's why none of the power companies are advocating just removing the implicit environmental subsidy and allowing power to be sold back to them at wholesale rate.
They just want solar panels gone, period.
How is that worse than any other tax? You make a choice and the government charges you for making that choice.
Its going to be untenable to tax someone for no longer using the electric utility (I'm revolted by that idea personally, and am pretty far left bleeding liberal).
You could possibly further subsidize low income electric consumers to have their own system installed using the federal general fund (solar installations receive a 30% tax credit; it might be possible to increase that credit to 50%-75% depending on your adjusted gross income, and have it be a rebate immediately applied at the time of system install).