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0 pointsgreycol2mo ago0 comments

One thing to remember is as it becomes more widespread line costs will go up (assuming they are subsidized by kwh use, which they generally are) and no-sun power prices will increase as it's the only time when the grid needs power from non solar producers and they still need to cover cost incurred while they're not producing.

That will push the economics towards completely off grid systems as more people adopt solar, so if people are planning it for themselves they should probably consider that it will make sense to expand their set up in the future and that there might be a price crunch due to higher demand because of larger systems coupled with more people wanting to switch.

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port112mo ago

My partner works in the field and we once talked about this. I think the idea is that individual consumers’ and businesses’ batteries can serve the grid as needed. For example, if your car is fully charged and you don’t need it today, it can top up local needs.

So I think the writing isn’t on the wall yet for line price going up, although I’m of course talking of a) Belgium, and b) a future that could go wrong if utilities don’t fund smart metering.

nonfamous2mo ago

That’s how it works for us here in Australia. We have 16Wh of solar and 40KWh of battery, and pay (and receive) wholesale rates for electricity. During the say electricity prices are very low or negative, and we run off the solar and charge the car then. In the evenings when demand is high electricity prices can spike, and our system will automatically sell to the grid then. Sometimes we may need to draw from the grid in the early morning to make up for that, but the price we pay then is insignificant compared to what we make selling the day before.

port112mo ago

That sounds quite good, but you have a massive installation. Did it pay for itself by now?

ViewTrick10022mo ago

An interesting possible is the grid becoming smaller. Neighborhood scale.

In many places from Central Europe and further north dealing with arctic cold spells and dunkelflautes are near impossible for a home solar and storage setup.

But you also don’t want to pay for a continental scale grid the remaining 51 weeks.

So in your neighborhood add some wind power and a good old trusty diesel/gas turbine running on carbon neutral fuel and keep the costs to a minimum.

suburban_strike2mo ago

This is addressed by crowdsourcing generation and storage to household batteries. Surplus energy is banked locally instead of being dumped on the grid. The utilities buy it back from homeowners at wholesale rate under demand response programs when they can't meet demand.

snapplebobapple2mo ago

Many cities in north america you cant get occupancy without grid tied electricity, so every house incurs the coat of bas government policies on transmission. Its why i havent bothered with this yet. The optimal setup for here is natural gas generator, some battery and some solar given how stupid the fixed charges are here but you cant live in your house if you disconnect from the grid (even better would be for fuel cell manufacturers to offer something sized for a house so i can get hot water put of it as well and a silent unit)

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0 pointsgreycol2mo ago0 comments

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port112mo ago

So I think the writing isn’t on the wall yet for line price going up, although I’m of course talking of a) Belgium, and b) a future that could go wrong if utilities don’t fund smart metering.

nonfamous2mo ago

port112mo ago

That sounds quite good, but you have a massive installation. Did it pay for itself by now?

ViewTrick10022mo ago

An interesting possible is the grid becoming smaller. Neighborhood scale.

In many places from Central Europe and further north dealing with arctic cold spells and dunkelflautes are near impossible for a home solar and storage setup.

But you also don’t want to pay for a continental scale grid the remaining 51 weeks.

So in your neighborhood add some wind power and a good old trusty diesel/gas turbine running on carbon neutral fuel and keep the costs to a minimum.

suburban_strike2mo ago

snapplebobapple2mo ago

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