I am seriously considering going with the Tesla solar roof sometime in the next five years. This system converts DC power to AC and uses a battery cell for storage.
If solar systems become somewhat common over the next 10 years how will that change things for audiophiles? Will power plants still be necessary if a majority of the power comes from solar? Will things get more complicated due to integration of the solar panel output, battery output, and grid output?
It may make audio sound better if one harvests the DC direct from the panels and bypass AC to DC rectification which our equipment currently uses. One big challenge would be keeping voltage constant; batteries decrease voltage as they discharge and solar cell output varies constantly with available light.
The systems are fascinating. My neighbors have an expansive restored prairie with a large solar farm. They have both DC and AC outputs. The system is setup to interface with the Tesla batteries once they are available. Neat stuff.
My sense is that most of the inverters that convert DC to AC are really dirty (i.e., chopped waveforms instead of nice sine waves, similar to what you get from a cheap UPS). Maybe they would market audiophile grade inverters. Going direct to the panels/batteries with DC avoids that but raises the issues Elk mentions, plus you need big batteries to lower impedance without voltage sag. These are technical issues and there will be technical solutions but nothing is as simple as it seems.