I agree with pretty much everything Pinballooking said. Unfortunately home battery technology as energy storage devices are not where they need to be to economically viable. If you have net metering on a grid tied system that is the most efficient way to go. A gas driven generator would then be used for those times when the grid goes down.
That isn't to say that net metering is the final answer. Electric utilities themselves will have to adopt energy storage devices for this to continue to be offered as a solution to customers. Until utilities do this they will find themselves going more and more off kilter as their customers start generating the energy they use to supply. It's conceivable that 50 years hence, or even earlier, that electric public utilities companies will be primarily distribution and energy storage entities and the actual electricity supply will be a small niche area. Either that will happen or a breakthrough home electricity storage system will be invented that makes electric utility companies truly optional to citizens.
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