Amounts of electric power that would not make much difference at my 40 kWh a day all electric house can still make huge differences in the functionality and even basic health in a lot of other people’s houses.

Even when the power is subject to the sun going down, being able to get more hours of power and being less subject to system-wide blackouts is of considerable value. That is why there are so many diesel generators out there backing up various users systems. As they get used less because the power is actually more expensive than solar, everybody but the oil companies wins.

There is also a matter of unmetered electrical energy consumption. Shorter supply lines and local control reduce the opportunities for stealing electric power.

What is likely is that many small grids will start appearing. (They already are.) A village will create a solar system to replace their diesel generator system, using the generator as backup.

As things mature they may combine forces with other villages to install a shared wind turbine. Then to increase reliability they’ll enter a power sharing transmission line with another group of villages.

It’s possible that a 21st Century grid will get built from the bottom up.