I wouldn’t trust DerpCOT with access to my solar system anyway. They’d suck it dry in a second to keep Abbott’s swimming pool running. One thing that came out of last year’s debacle was that small print allowed DerpCOT to fuck with people’s smart thermostats, which they very much did.
I’ve seen that some systems allow you to be grid connected but have an automatic cut off when the grid goes down so you can keep using your own juice without charging the grid accidentally. Of course, not in Texas…
But that’s different from VPPs which, as I understand it, let the grid draw juice from private battery storage over the short term instead of, say, firing up a gas turbine peaker plant. It allows them to balance the grid with private juice when only small amounts are needed.
Over time, as private battery deployment spreads, the flexibility provided by VPPs will only get better and better. We could/should get to the point where most homes can run themselves during the day on solar, while also recharging their battery, with the grid only being needed as a backstop over night or early morning when the battery may not have the juice to handle the household waking up.
Unless it is heavily subsidized by the feds, municipalities, or energy providers, this has a slim chance of happening. I’m not talking about a net-metering-style buyback of electricity like with PV solar, but subsidizing the enormous up-front cost. Solar panels and battery systems are still very expensive (would’ve been $60k for my house after rebates and tax credits) and battery longevity is absolutely a concern.
Also, there needs to be a LOT more competition in the market. Tesla is a shit company.
Once they figure out that subsidizing home solar/battery systems is cheaper than having to build more centralized power generation, it’ll work. It’s the same reason you have to dig a retention pond when you build a new apartment complex.
Those were the kind of quotes we were getting too. We had a choice: an expensive system with batteries and no grid connection, or grid connection that was unusable as back-up power. I decided to wait a couple of years and see if things improved. I think if they don’t, I’ll go back and price grid connection with the option to disconnect when batteries are cheaper–as I recall sufficient battery storage was what drove the price so high.
Wasn’t sure where to put this, but I thought it was interesting and sort of adjacent to the conversation.
Here in Arkansas we have a solar company (led by former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, our last good Democrat) that is building mini-solar plants for cities and school districts. Hot Springs, where I live, is kind of the model project.
They are building small solar plants at out-of-the-way locations like wastewater facilities (which also use the power) and then using that electricity to run the city government’s needs. The city government is now self-sufficient, PLUS, they signed a 30-year contract so the city knows exactly what its electricity costs will be for 30 years. The solar company is also doing this with school districts.
This is very smart. As has been mentioned above, even for a home user the price-barrier to entry is very high. A municipality can issue bonds to cover the upfront cost, and reap the benefits on the down side.
What’s interesting is relatively how little square footage of solar is required to satisfy power needs. Putting the logistics of storage aside for a moment, it would take 14 million acres of solar panels to satisfy the energy needs of the U.S. To put that in context, it takes 30 million acres to supply the ethanol that we use as an additive in gasoline. Further, solar panels can be installed on exiting structures so require relatively little additional land use, so the comparison is almost 30 million acres for ethanol vs. zero for solar.
