What is the value of having the house off-grid? Wouldn't it be better for you and the rest of society if your house was on-grid and you could pump excess energy to the grid and buy it back during winter if necessary instead of trying to store energy long-term in your house?
I understand it is an interesting problem and all that, just thinking the energy used to solve this esoteric problem might be better used for more large scale solutions?
I’ve been dreaming about this for 15+ years and for me an important ideological aspect is decentralization.
The amount of Bad Things tm that happened related to energy is immense.
Exporting power to the grid requires a grid capable of that. In many places this is highly limited. Where I am the vast majority of applicants wishing to do this are rejected.
I'd guess we'll see mid to large scale electrolyzer plants pop up in many locations throughout a country as soon as the build out of PV on roofs of private houses (also everywhere else) leads to daily overload on the electric grid.
These electrolyzers will then take up the excess electricity and convert it to hydrogen as seasonal storage and thus stabilize the grid.
Additionally, you'd combine these sites with either fuel-cell or hydrogen powered gas turbine plants, to then generate enough electricity when PV generation cannot meet demand.
I understand it is an interesting problem and all that, just thinking the energy used to solve this esoteric problem might be better used for more large scale solutions?
reply