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Money is trickling into solar energy research and price/kilowatt continues to drop and will be price competitive in the near future--through a combination of further price drops/efficiency gains for it and price increases for fossil fuel systems. The problem is that developing technologies are mostly suited to small installations where the risk can be minimized.
For instance, if I put a $20,000 solar installation in my home with a 10-year "break even" equation...I only risk the investment and I know I have a very motivated buyer for the energy the setup produces (myself) and even if the "wholesale price" of the energy is high, it will likely be at or below retail price. A huge solar farm as you describe must provide cheap enough power to make it profitable to sell at wholesale rates to large distributors--that is a problem right now.
That isn't the biggest problem with large-format solar generation by far. The major problem (along with a multitude of technical hurdles such as storage) is the very process of improvement in the technology. In the single home example above, there isn't much risk. Even if a newer system became available the day after I bought mine that was twice as efficient, the worse that happens is that my "break even" point gets pushed out a bit longer because the market for energy has dropped. The thing is, I'm still getting "free" power.
The utility network you describe is not isolated from competition. If a day after they bring online $20 million worth the current solar technology that new twice as efficient system becomes available, they are unlikely to ever be able to sell their expensive power at a profit.
That's why solar is somewhat popular among consumers at this point, but not being rapidly adopted by utility companies in the way you describe.
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