>Very few people have batteries with their solar in my neighborhood.
This is common. It is of course due to the cost of battery systems, particularly if the solar system was installed several years ago. I just bought a house that has solar and not only does it not have battery storage, but the solar cannot power the house when grid power is down. Seems insane to me to build a system that can't bootstrap from the solar and run things on an as available basis during outages but apparently this is typical.
I'm still learning, but I also think that I am not getting great value for the power I am supplying to the grid during the day. Add to that the extra cost of power during peak evening hours when I don't have solar and a battery to time shift my solar for my own use during the evening seems like a win. It still helps the grid since I am pulling less during peak evening hours.
Vote in politicians that will force the winterization of the energy grid. That's the only way.
On a side note if I lived in Texas with all of that sun, I would be installing a solar roof and tesla power wall. I don't think this issue is going to be resolved for a long time.
>...I plan to install a solar PV system that will make the house a net-zero energy consumer (everything is electric, no fossil fuels).
Few people are able to afford that because the battery backup needed for daily/seasonal solar variations is just too expensive. You are able to remove yourself from the grid with an estimated 10 year payback?
>Do you think building solar farms causes existing gas plants to collapse or something?
Yes it literally does. My employer has shuttered three out of their fleet of nine gas power stations because they are no longer peak competitive with batteries. And base load designs aren't competitive with solar since they are more expensive and will only be turned on during extreme events, like a snow storm, or an extremely hot night.
Sucks to be us when we need electricity during an extreme event though.
No, cost-benefit-wise, it isn't: it makes more sense to buy a generator and have it handy. Even if you have to replace it every 10 years, you're still ahead. I'm not being entirely callous here, either: I live in Dallas and just lived through 3 days of intermittent power and heat and it sucked a lot. I'll be investing in a power generator in a few months (when they become available again). If half the homes in Texas had been able to switch to their own generators for a few days, the grid would have been able to sustain the remaining load.
The worse problem we have down here is water, and there's not a whole lot an individual can do about that: if we're going to collectivize the winterization of anything, I'd rather it be the pipes.
> If I got many solar panels and backup batteries to power my house, I would still be required to pay $5 a month to the local electric company and would not be allowed to disconnect from them.
That may be true for water and gas, but is usually false for electricity.
> Texas has a great system under normal conditions that has incentivized a ton of solar and Panhandle wind, but it is not built for severe conditions.
I don’t know that it’s “great” for anyone except the guys in the energy market who see the upside from volatility. The rates I see right now are higher than what my local utility charges, about on par with our all-renewable option, and we have no downside scenario where the prices skyrocket or the power goes out with no accountability. I do appreciate the amount of wind power (and hope the politicians don’t stymie that industry) but it doesn’t appear to be especially unique in that growth.
> Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I’m installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?
What will you do when it has been raining/cloudy for weeks straight like it has recently in California? For this period, wind has dramatically outproduced solar [1]. Even in the summer/fall, when there was severe wildfire smoke in the area, my solar+battery barely produced anything.
Sure, you can set up a propane generator (very expensive at the size needed for a full house backup), but then you are dependent on the propane-distribution grid. The dirty secret of "no-sacrifice off-grid" lifestyles is how much they are dependent on propane for heating and electricity.
Also, the grid's up-time is going to be better than your home battery setup up-time both because it is constantly maintained and it has access to a greater diversity of energy sources (wind, nuclear, fossil, large-scale storage) that are firmer than anything you can attach to your house.
The fact is that modern living standards (cars, TVs, comfortable temperatures) require a much larger amount of energy and energy-availability than most people can produce on their properties with solar. The additional energy has to be imported somehow, either from the electric grid or as liquid or gaseous fuels.
I know plenty of people in Texas who will be buying solar panels and batteries after last winter. I will be doing the same.
> Do you roll your own ISP + telecoms network?
If I could magically get fiber directly to an IX I would gladly be my own ISP. I have confidence I would do as good a job or better than the ISPs I’ve had over the years (yes I realize having hundreds of thousands of customers to service is more difficult than a single home).
> ...have solar and where building codes are actually being changed to require solar panels...
Do you have a source for that? It sounds kinda silly. The maintenance + OH&S aspects of solar panels are nontrivial and it doesn't make sense to mandate them on residential homes.
I've always assumed that once the economics make sense it'll be easier to build a massive solar farm and let people use the grid as usual. Much less risk of people falling off roofs,heavy objects falling off roofs, wiring being misconnected, weird maintenance problems, managing the ebb and flow of energy, etc. I don't want to have to look after my own panels.
> they use solar panels in yurts in literally the middle of nowhere to charge batteries and watch satellite TV, which is amazing imo.
> If they can do it, so can we.
Weather is a huge variable. In summer my solar panels may generate all the power needs for my off-grid boat. In winter, I rely on the engine alternator and turning my fridge off.
> You will never be able to produce enough power just from solar panels on your roof
What do you mean by this? Our solar panels produce enough electricity that we never* draw from the local grid. We have a 4,000 sq foot home with 8 people living it. At least a few people are home all the time. We have 2 AC units and 2 furnaces. We have an electric water heater.
* Well, we surely do at night, yet we generate so much more than we use that the credits from the overage feeding back into the grid more than compensates for whatever we use at night. Our monthly electric bill is never higher than the $12 hookup fee.
> Very few of the people that would currently benefit from a domestic backup battery could afford $2k
California, a state of 40 million people, would disagree with you ;)
Not just referencing the blackouts we had last summer: CA also is heavily invested in solar power, and as a result, power is much cheaper during the day than at night (assuming you opt into time of use pricing). A battery for $2k would pay for itself in California quickly, because you can charge it when power is cheap during the day and run off battery when power is expensive at night.
Plenty of other US states have had blackouts as well; my parents in PA now own a generator due to repeated blackouts last year. If they could have bought a battery for $2k, they probably would have: generators are loud and dirty. And Texans certainly had a bad time with blackouts recently as well.
I have actually been in the position of having to rely on non-mains power all my life.
It bloody sucks.
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