I am thinking along the line of:
- You can just do it / upgrade it etc
- Robust against central failures for various reasons
- Resistant to those in charge of centralized infrastructure abusing their monopolyIf you are going through all of that, there is not much benefit to plug-in solar instead of traditional.
The more stable you think the future will be, the more you want to capture the efficiency of central power.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I just don't see society taking that measure until it's either 1) cheaper, or 2) the threat moves from being just a threat to reality.
Completely agree. But I'm already there. Large scale economic disruption has just started. For that to remain peaceful over the next few decades would be a miracle. So we should plan for disruption, for which energy decentralization is a keystone, and the technology to make it practical is here.
In other words, it can be useful even if it's not the most efficient way to do it. It only has to be more efficient than the status quo.
I don't have thd capital to build utility-scale solar. I do have the capital to install residential solar. My electricity is now cheaper.
Utility companies are not incentivized to lower prices because it means less money for them. Do you remember when power companies told people to conserve power and then people successfully did this? And then they raised rates because they weren't making enough money? This happens in California ALL THE TIME. I've lived here 30 years in Silicon Valley and it's the biggest scam that no one talks about. It happens with electricity and water. With water its even more egregious because they told us to conserve water because of the "drought" but once the drought was over, they raised rates because people weren't using enough water. My connection fee to water is over $100/month without spending a drop of water. That's why I stopped conserving water and water my lawn every single day because it turns out that my water costs are only about 1/3 of the actual water bill costs so fuck it!
It's the same playbook over and over again, there's no incentive to lower rates at all because it's an easy way to make money over an entire population of tens of millions of people.
Now PG&E is fighting to charge solar panel owners $100+/month just for the privilege of being connected to the grid. That would make having solar panels even more expensive than not having solar panels which is utter hypocrisy but no one seems to care or point this out. It's a complete and utter scam.
EDIT: I forgot to mention last year the rates were $0.37-0.45 per kWh, until this year when they implemented a base fee of $25/month, so they lowered it to $0.33-0.45/kWh. Rates in Nevada are 1/4 of that.
2015: $0.17-0.33 per kWh
2020: $0.24-0.38 per kWh
so prices have more than doubled in 10 years. Fucking criminals.
If this weren't done, there would be risk of electricution to anyone working on wiring in the house or on the utility distribution network.
Plug-in solar is suboptimal in many ways, but it does sidestep a lot of those hurdles. Not too surprised to see it on the rise.
Another thing that might be worth keeping in mind is that plug-in solar panels are often installed vertically - i.e. balcony solar. In which case the peak generation is offset to the edge of the typical "duck curve". If it gets popular enough to affect the grid, it might get the solar-induced demand slump larger, but make the edges even sharper.
Would that make grid scale battery storage with its instant response even more important?
sleepyguy•44m ago