If the ads are any clue, this mystical new "smart grid" technology will solve everything, although I'm not exactly clear on what said technology is and why it's so important if grid-tie systems worked just fine before. Sounds to me like just another buzz word for the naturally occurring evolution of generation, distribution and metering technology.
In theory, it sounds best to me to keep everyone tied together. While solar isn't going to keep the lights on at night, it can at least help with the peak usage during the daytime. Until cheap storage comes around, we'll probably be dealing with large base load generating stations for a very long time... At least until we have macro power grids of superconductive materials, so we can pull solar from the other side of the world :P
