Utility-scale solar has better capacity factors and installation economics.

I think it's going to be barely possible to keep our current quality of life and reach a low-CO2 economy. We have limited resources, and even if a residential solar panel "pays back" its energy in 2.5 years, we are better off putting it in a desert where it will pay back that energy in a year.

I think residential solar was a decent bridge to get things going, and the installed capacity we have is helpful.

Now, though-- at midday we have a glut of power. Residential installations are more expensive per kilowatt hour and don't do as well in reaching into the late afternoon when we need power most. There's no need to add more capacity like this. Better for those panels to go somewhere else.

There are still times that non-utility scale solar make sense-- it's usually when you get some kind of non-normal-generation related benefit that tips it over into worthwhile, e.g.

- getting a shade structure for a parking lot as part of the rollout

- if you want power backup for your house, adding a bunch of storage and solar

etc.

At this point, there are a lot of residential neighborhoods that need more distribution and even transmission capacity (because their peak power movement is now exporting power at mid-day rather than the previous smaller peak loads used). And operating the grid has become a much more complicated task.

Again: residential solar isn't worthless, but in many places we've reached the point of diminishing returns where any additional capacity is much less useful-- unless there's an ancillary benefit that justifies it (like backup power for your house when deploying storage).