For the most part, 'they' is 'us'. We have to live with the results. My power company is the REC, and I could run for the board but I don't. Anyway its my neighbors trying their best to keep the power on for everybody.
You didn't mention issues of connecting to the local grid. There may be issues adding solar to your house, relative to the transformer and neighborhood substation. That $100 may be what it cost them to adapt. Likely its a tiny fraction of the cost of dealing with customers with unusual requirements.
> There may be issues adding solar to your house, relative to the transformer and neighborhood substation. That $100 may be what it cost them to adapt.
Almost assuredly no. There are laws in place and inspections which get done that prohibit anyone's inverters from being on when the power is off, this is to protect workers from getting shocked when a line SHOULD be down, but isn't. The inspection is simple and it's been done for many years for people who choose to install backup generators. Obviously those don't feed power back, but that leads into my next point.
If they can run 100 or 200 amp service to my house, surely they can afford a few dozen amps of power in the other direction. 100 amps * 220V = 22kW Many houses are wired for 200 amps so that's 44kW of power. Who is putting in 20kW to 40kW solar plants on their roof? A normal panel is between 200 and 400 watts. Which houses have 100 solar panels on them?
Further $100/mo times forever isn't reasonable if they only have a fixed capital cost to adapt. Again, they almost certainly don't unless everyone in the neighborhood is developing truly commercial amounts of solar and wind power. And if someone is breaking that threshold, fine I have no problems with them having to jump through hoops. They can afford it.
> For the most part, 'they' is 'us'.
It GREATLY depends on where you live. In rural areas it's a power co-op or whatever and I'm inclined to agree with just about everything you've said. But there are a lot of places where it's not a co-op and it's about someone turning a profit; for shareholders and everything.
You didn't mention issues of connecting to the local grid. There may be issues adding solar to your house, relative to the transformer and neighborhood substation. That $100 may be what it cost them to adapt. Likely its a tiny fraction of the cost of dealing with customers with unusual requirements.