The problem is you have enough energy you just don't have it at the right time. What people are learning is the infrastructure is built to handle the 10% of the time you aren't generating electricity but you still want power. The proof is in the pudding, if it was a cheap solution everyone would just install batteries but guess what? Batteries are expensive! It's weird to me people expect the utility to provide a cheap answer to one of their expensive problems.

All that said the utilities have shot themselves in the foot for having garbage rate structures the past 100 years to not give people a true understanding of what the cost of energy is, and what the cost of infrastructure is. They have done a horrible job or transitioning better to renewables. (You should see some of the PPA agreements some utilities sign, capping their renewable generation to 3% or less!) and finally they have done a horrible job of PR and instead just sit back on their comfortable monopoly allowing them security.

I personally haven't ever heard of someone being "forced" to connect to the grid but if so that's a sad thing. "Forced" to use a certain utility yes but but "forced" to connect.