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Discussion (49 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Not exclusively. A few power companies (like SRP) innovated here with TOU plans that have variable costs throughout the day. You can save huge amounts of monthly spend by moving energy intensive work to off-peak hours and by “priming” things ahead of peak hours, like over-cooling your house ahead of the peak window.
The most costly part of an infrastructure build out is supporting peak-of-peak - that capacity exists year round to service the demand generated by peak mid-day usage during a heatwave in July.
If you can “lop off” that peak - it dramatically reduces the infra build out cost.
Peak-of-peak tends to correspond with sunny days: mid-day in summer. I could see battery-less solar being a useful tool there.
They say £1/kWh is a Beta price, that makes sense as a way to burn investor money to get people interested. Their real price is TBD. Would you take 25p per kWh with a £5 per month guarantee ? That could be at least in the ballpark of working.
In the USA lots of early adopters of solar did so under net metering agreements where excess electricity is sold back at full price. After a number of years it was costing the utility companies too much money. So they updated the terms such that residents with solar buy electricity at retail prices (~$0.25) but sell it back at wholesale (~$0.04).
In my area natural gas is a consistent 40-60% of generated power, with solar rarely reaching more than about 30-35% at high noon in the summer.
Right now (as in at this very minute, high noon) in CA ~70% of the power being generated is renewable. That's 30% that could be solar, and isn't.
When there's excess renewable generation capacity (or about to be), sure, let's talk about installations for storing it.
In the meantime utilities are deploying battery systems for virtual grid inertia, to avoid having to use "peaker" plants, reliability when transmission lines go down, and for transmission line maintenance.
California is certainly curtailing a lot of energy. EIA report[0] said 3.4 TWh in 2024, which was a 29% increase over 2023. If I am reading this[1] chart correctly, the 2024 California demand was ~275TWh.
CASIO also has pages dedicated to curtailment with much of the data available[2].
[0] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65364
[1] PDF https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_C...
[2] https://www.caiso.com/about/our-business/managing-the-evolvi...
More solar (without batteries) makes that worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
A better solution is to do this on a local or federal government level and build the required amount of power.
There is the hiccup of universal distribution which needs regular maintenance, and is separate from electrical supply. But if this is remediated by charging solar owners base fees/connection fees, or if grid maintenance is only minority portion of electric utility bills (in the US it's about 40% with electricity production being 60%), the direction should still be poorer people proportionally benefitting.
This is different from net metering at retail rates, which arguably does move costs from richer ratepayers to poorer ones.
In Australia there’s a ridiculous amount of household solar & now battery being installed. Despite all the attempts by companies/governments to do something, they just keep getting in the way of themselves.
I’m glad the option exists for people to go their own, that of course puts the bar at the individuals finances.
Then there's the prospect of the price dropping even lower in the next few years. Imagine 800w kits for $100. How can you ignore something like that?
Edit: My state had a subsidy of 300€ when I bought mine, so the RoI was instant ;-)
Unfortunately for me my back garden has too much shade for panels and I don't think I could get away with them in the front.
So that leaves a roof top install and I think once you have scaffold that you might as well have a traditional install.
Wish plugin batteries were part of it.
Right now (well 27th August) you can plug your inverter into a battery but you can't connect the battery to a ring main you have to connect devices directly to it.
That is under assessment though so there's a good chance they could copy the way Germany does it, just like they're doing with the panels.
Ask anyone who has had a system installed. Your system can be totally compliant with national and state electrical code, installed by a competent installer using staff who are licensed electricians, get a stamp of approval from your own's inspectors - and the utility will refuse to connect it and insist you meet an additional set of their own conditions.
And there's nothing you can do about it. No appeals, no review process, nothing.
It's not even consistent, with utilities seeming to just obstruct for the sake of obstructing. Over and over I've of systems going in, the utility comes out (eventually) to inspect, refuses to connect. They're called back out, nothing has changed, and the system gets approved.
This is legislatures getting tired of all that power company bullshit, and bypassing them. As balcony solar rules hit state legislatures, expect some really absurd scare campaigns by power companies, and lots of lobbying.
Power companies see every solar panel they don't own as a threat to the profits they make on their fossil fuel power plants.
Well, I am someone who had a system installed… I have a 14000 KwH per year system, and two 13 KwH batteries. It did take a while to get it inspected, which was annoying, although I was able to use it while I waited (I just couldn’t sent power to the power company until after), but they approved it the first time without any additional requirements.
What makes you so sure everyone has the experience you are talking about?
This didn't happen to me or anyone else I know with rooftop solar in multiple states, and I've never heard of it. What citations do you have?
If they're mounted on a roof then obviously you can't benefit from that so it would be cheaper to go with single sided panels.
They'll replace the line worker at the drop of a hat, and fight tooth and nail to grow profits, that's just how corporations work.
We could deploy 100x the capacity $/Wh with utility-scale farms. Unfortunately we are just completely failing on basic coordination problems like this in the west, every man for himself.
Yes, installing the solar power globally, and getting a globally connected grid would be more efficient in terms of solar panels/kW(h). But alas, that also requires a lot more infrastructure.
In the mean time this can reduce the energy bill for many people. Especially, if tied to a battery. It is not intended to provide independence, for that you need a lot more capacity.
How does that safety protocol work when the electrical connections and supplies are distributed around the house and may be inaccessible due to fire?
Mr. Boyce of UL Solutions said his company would certify panels only if they did not pose a risk to consumers or utility workers.
IEEE 1547 (interconnection behavior), UL 1741 (inverter product safety), UL 3700 (plug-in solar). (also there are newer revisions you need of some standards like UL 1741)
If I had a balcony solar panel, I'd definitely expect it to be providing backup power when we need it the most. I'd expect it to charge a storage battery, not backfeed into the grid.
Surface area means a lot for solar panels. An EV with a solar panel on top is laughable. I own a solar backpack that couldn't charge its power bank within 3 weeks of daily full sun. A "balcony solar panel" may not keep your smartphone charged.
They are not as weak as the toy panels you are describing, but they are regulated to 800W max anyways.