I'm in the UK and with solar and battery, and having an EV there are tariffs out there where the levellised cost you'll pay is approaching 7p per kWh.

Intelligent Octopus Go is one example - between 23:30 and 05:30 all of your electricity usage is 7p per kWh, for the entire house. For this, you give up controlling when your EV is charged as Octopus either control it through the car, or through a compatible charger. When your car is plugged in, they build a charging schedule when the grid is cheapest and greenest. You give them an "I need to add this % of charge and it to be done by this time tomorrow morning" and it just works it out. On days with a glut of renewable generation (i.e., it's very windy, or very sunny) you will get half hour slots at 7p during the day as well.

Now comes the solar and PV element - their "outgoing octopus" export scheme pays 15p per kWh, so in the summer you can build a nice credit buffer from exported excess energy, and then in the winter, charge the battery whenever the cheap rate is active and given a big "enough" battery, most of your usage will cost you 7p + 5-10% (efficiency losses from AC/DC/AC conversion).

The payback period for Solar + Battery, especially in the UK where we aren't saddled with high tariffs for panels, is coming down markedly. It used to be well in excess of a decade, but is between 5-10 years now.

Is that payback time with a battery?

It’s about 7 years without and 10-12 with here in New Zealand.

I get some installed next month.

I'm in Northern Europe (54N) and when I had solar installed 3 years ago I calculated it would be around 7 years, without incentives and without a battery. The price has dropped a lot since then, so it would be under 5 years now.

With a battery. Costs have halved per kWh over the last year or so here.

Nobody is getting california salaries in rural UK though...

California is not the Bay Area and LA metro. There are lots of places in California you won't get "California salaries" either.

Having grown up in rural California I have will return the favor I get for confusing the UK with London ;)

Fair point - I did not consider purchasing price parity.

According to the EIA Monthly, average California residential prices were 30¢ in October. Your statement is closer to being correct if you say "PG&E prices" instead of "California prices". PG&E has ~6 million accounts in a state of 40 million people.

  PG&E has ~6 million accounts in a state of 40 million people.

Apples to oranges. 6 million accounts works out to roughly 16 million people according to their site. That works out to a bit over 40% of the 39 million (38,965,193 says Wiki) people out here.

Updated..

I've had cheaper, more reliable, higher quality power every place I've lived with a population over a few dozen people. Why is PG&E like this?

Regulatory capture.

PG&E is a terrible example since the rates are so high.