A 10kW system produces somewhere between 11,000kWh - 17,000kWh / year give or take. Qatar has one of lowest electricity prices in the world at $0.03/kW

$0.03 * 11,000kWh/year * 87 years = $28,710.

So either you're vastly underestimating the amount you pay in electricity, or you're using vastly less electricity in which case you obviously wouldn't get a 10kW system.

Many parts of the US have staggeringly cheap power compared to the rest of the world.

Before all this our power bills were smack on $100 per month, so I’ve got about a 6.5 year pay off. Electricity here is 13 cents per kWh, but is confirmed to increase 5% per year basically forever. So my pay off is less than that.

You are paying less than $5 a month for that level of energy generation?

Thats ummm extremely cheap.

Indeed, average in CA is $260/month so $5k pays off very fast in some places.

I live in a locale that has cheap energy, in fact one that makes solar a pretty bad deal. Depending on the real generation numbers of the panels it would take about 20 years for me to payback that level of generation.

So saying most people have an 80 year payback period just feels wildly off (depending on the assumptions in the calculation I think that implies less than a penny per kWh generated).

Well how much electricity are you using? If you use much less electricity, then you would need less solar panels which means the system would be cheaper.

I highly doubt there is anywhere in the world where you can buy the amount of energy specified by the parent as cheaply as you said. Like i think it would work out to less then a penny per kwh

If you are not accounting for amount of generation than this is an apples and oranges comparison.

That's if the price of electricity doesn't change in the next 87 years

The panels are also a hedge against that uncertainty and provide self reliance

The more usage of intermittent renewables increases the more your electricity bill is dominated by fixed costs. You still need the grid, which is only growing more expensive.

Or batteries, which are also getting cheaper.

For places not already on the grid, using batteries instead of paying for a new grid connection is close enough to be a question worth asking, though from what I've seen not a definite "yes" or "no" in general.

The parts of the world that use so little electricity are not major contributors to climate change.