Net metering only makes sense as a way to incentivize solar installations. Looking at the economics, it's not something any utility would offer willingly.

It's like if the grocery store let you give them milk for a credit at full price. (Let's ignore the sanitary/health/quality issues that would come up.) You decide to buy a cow and you drink that milk. Sometimes you need more than your cow can give so you buy extra from the store. Sometimes you need less and you sell the extra to the store. Long term, you use as much as your cow produces on average, so you pay the store nothing. But the store has provided a valuable services to you and has incurred expenses in doing so. They have to keep the lights on and maintain a building and pay workers to handle your transactions but they make no money from you. The only way it would work at all is if they made enough money from their non-cow-owning customers to make up for it, and that can only take you so far.

> It's like if the grocery store let you give them milk for a credit at full price.

I know of quite a few places where through net metering you don't get full price, you get the wholesale rate for your production which is significantly less.