Yes, it’s hard to believe but it’s happening. In Georgia, the Sierra Club has joined forces with a splinter group of the Tea Party called the Green Tea Coalition (how cute) to promote solar power. Why do some libertarians and tea party supporters like solar?

Liberal economics. Utilities have effective, though regulated, monopolies in most of the U.S. with the exception of markets like Texas, which are deregulated. Rooftop solar presents a chance for greater competition in energy markets, and Southern Co., a Georgia utility, has just invested $14 billion in nuclear and is passing the costs onto ratepayers with a surcharge. This has infuriated many Tea Party members. Combine this with the fast declining cost of solar and many libertarians are screaming that the time has come to allow consumers greater choice in where they source their energy.

Georgia is particularly unfriendly to rooftop solar, which by law cannot be financed because a third party is not allowed to own the solar system. Customers can only get solar by shouldering the hefty up front costs of a solar system. Much of the success of companies like SolarCity has come as they’ve rolled out solar leasing, which has no up front costs.

So we’ll see what happens here, but the lesson for me is that the economics of declining solar prices are starting to shift political forces as well.