Yeah. When we bought our solar system, even knowing it was grid-tied, it felt like we'd somehow be generating our own power.
As soon as we had it, and I looked at the tiering, time-of-use, etc, and I realized it's all an arbitrage game. I'm selling my roof space and fixed asset back to the power company, and buying power from them.
If solar could reasonably double for me as a way of weathering a several day power outage in the winter, it would be more interesting. But I'm deeply suspicious of anything that has people out in front of Home Depot hard-selling something that often has complex financing schemes. I don't have huge power bills relative to lots of other home costs. So I'll pass.
DIY doesn't come with those asterisks, and DIY with only-thermal power use & energy storage is on the simple side of things. "Help me heat in the winter" is basically the simplest use-case, because you can accomplish it with a south-facing solar fence and some resistors [or an inverter + space heater, or whatever].
Personally I like the idea of a three-season thermal mass store, a big tank of water or pile of sand that you dump heat into when it's sunny, and extract it at will the rest of the day/week.
