> Why connect to the grid if you are self-sufficient?

I grew up in Australia used to a grid averaging perhaps an hour’s downtime in the typical year. But now I live in India, and not only is the power frequently off for hours at a time (it’s a rare week that lacks an hour of downtime, and five or ten hours isn’t uncommon), the quality of the power is also far lower, and it damages hardware. It’s normal for AC units to need mildly expensive component replacements every year or two due to electrical damage, even with the obligatory voltage regulator in place, whereas in Australia I think most people never need to professionally service their AC until it completely packs up after maybe 15 years. If you’re going to want a decent-sized inverter and batteries anyway to get reliable power, then so long as you can get enough solar panellage, getting those solar panels and more batteries and going off-grid becomes mighty attractive—I suspect a payoff period of under a decade, even with comparatively cheap grid power, partly on the strength of electronics living longer.

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Somewhere along the way, it actually becomes mandatory to be connected to such services. In Australia I lived in a rural town of under 100 people, and I asked if I could disconnect from the town water supply, and was told no. So that was some sum of mandatory daily connection fee for something that I would have preferred to unsubscribe from. (Town water was only hooked up to some outdoor taps, and the toilet; the supply had only become treated/potable five years prior, so every house was still hooked up to their rainwater tanks. In fact, the guy I bought the place from said that twenty years earlier you didn’t use the town water on your garden because it would kill the plants.)