Your idea is sound – but you need to consider first that no utility company would ever want to be a part of this, since it would ruin the financial situation for them. Rather than sitting side by side with the utility companies these solar companies need to replace the utility companies, to compete with them.

In Sweden there are laws in place so that everyone can choose their own utility company. It doesn't matter who owns the lines up to your house, you pay that separately from the electricity. So, with a system like that in place a company promoting these solar ideas could start and thrive side by side with existing utility companies, eventually out-competing them as they reach critical mass… Which would make more sense financially for all the companies involved.

#1 All Government Vehicle Fleet Purchasing Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle.

#2 Massive investment in 10 different renewable storage technologies — ie Salt Nitrate, Ammonia Thermochemical, Advanced Adiabiatic Compressed Air Storage etc. – University / Industry Collaboration

#3 Build out of 5000MW each of 5-10 leading Solar Thermal technologies — ie Ausra, Brightsource, Sopogy, Heliodynamics, eSolar, Wizard, Skyrfuel etc

with Government backed loans — Streamline permiting — this is where NEPA maybe holding things up — but don't exempt NEPA just make the process much faster

During WWII the highly polluting Nuclear program didn't have to get permitting — glass, steel, concrete from solar thermal plants can't do anywhere near that amount of damage.

#4 Materials research – to reduce the use of concrete and other materials, or replace them with less carbon intensive sources (on a total lifecycle basis).

#5 Zero Carbon housing – Federally fund 100,000 Zero Carbon houses to be built to demonstrate the technology and then allocate them for the poor.

#6. Build a Highspeed Rail network (360km+ per hour peak) linking all the major centres – same places the interstate highways go (but into the centres of town with tunnels/land aquisitions) and Federal airports.

#7 As the tramways did in the 30's with a common tramcar model, build a common tramcar model as an opensource design using lightweight high tensile strong composites — such as those being used by the rocky mountains institute spinoff bright for the "hypercar" concept.

This idea would happen as fast as people want to put solar on their roofs. I for one would arrange for a solar roof tomorrow, if this was the law now.

(Because utilities would not be buying your electricity – but they would just be passing the money through…)

And less NIMBY-prone than the Renewable Portfolio Standard.

(Because environmentalists sometimes object to transmission for all the new renewable energy we need, so even though we need it, and the utility needs to add more renewable electricity,but becaue of the NIMBY they sometimes can't and so get fined. And we don't get the renewable. Like the sunrise power link in CA, for example)