How, exactly, does that solve anything? It’s not like we can add some kind of magic automatic residential cutoff system (that would just make it worse) and residential distribution is already the problem! Residential solar is awesome (tho home batteries are largely elon propaganda…) but they only contribute to the above issue, not solve it. There are ways of addressing it, but they’re complicated and unglamorous.
Because home batteries, while provisionally useful in the same way as a standby generator (though the generator is going to be far more eco friendly than the batteries over their respective lifetimes), is a vastly inferior solution to the implementation of even local grid scale solutions. Also because there is essentially 0 infrastructure designed to handle said batteries, they wear out quite quickly at home scales (unless you’re using uncommon chemistries, but if you’re using iron-nickle batteries you’re not the target audience here) and because Elon popularized them with his “powerwall” bullshit entirely to pump the stock value of Tesla’s battery plant (which is it’s own spectacular saga I encourage you to look up, it’s a real trip).
Batteries in the walls are useful in niches, but the current technology which uses lipo/lion/lifepo4 chemistries is inherently flawed and a route to both dead linemen and massive amounts of E-waste. They could be useful potentially, but as it stands, it’s really bad right now.
You need to look up how much grid storage lithium batteries are being built. It’s exponential growth. Faster than solar.
The reason it’s worthwhile is because solar makes energy with 0 or near 0 price to the owner in certain places, if they store that and use it for later they save money. There are cost calculators out there and for certain markets they make sense.
Of course Tesla pushes it they got a product people want and it makes the consumer and Tesla money. Win win. That’s business, nothing shady about that.
Yes batteries are better on the grid but that’s for exactly the same reasons why solar is better on the grid.
After installation, a home owner has free electricity? I’m not trying to solve the issues for the power grid people, they have teams of people for that.
Spain and Portugal had almost complete blackouts today. You know who wouldn’t have had blackouts? The people with their own solar panels and windmills.
I acknowledge that there’s no real way to communicate sincerity online, but I’m gonna go ahead and promise I’m not trying to be a dick here when saying this:
a home owner has free electricity
I think you’re bonking up on the Dunning Kruger limit here, because that’s absolutely not how it works. Not only are the vast majority of homes not candidates for useful solar installs (you can pay someone to do it, but holy cow nearly every residential solar installer is a scam looking at you, Lumio International (how’s that RICO case going?)), but solar for home-use power generation is very much not the norm for a whole host of reasons (dead linemen one of the biggest ones) and the safety considerations for implementing it generally make it an onerous enough task to manage that it’s appeal is restricted largely to special interest users (homesteaders, preppers, S&R, power system enthusiasts, van life, etc ). There are ways this could be mitigated, but it would require a massive grid overhaul and additional constant upkeep beyond what any current grid already requires.
Not only are the vast majority of homes not candidates for useful solar installs
Australia is an edge case for everything solar and I’ll quite happily admit that! Yay Australia, well done. That said I’d be very willing to bet that the majority of those are not-above-50%-ideal installs (don’t take that bet, I’m cheating)
Hardly “only special interest groups”
Sorry, you’ve misunderstood, I was talking about direct home power generation being special interest, not residential solar in general. Aussies don’t have a higher rate for direct power generation than anywhere else because grids are, by and large, all suffering from the same fundamental design issues. I’m not at all attempting to argue that solar installs in general are special interest, and especially with the incredibly well thought out incentives the aus gvmt has been offering for both new construction and residential conversion/installation. 100% best handling of it in the world right now.
How, exactly, does that solve anything? It’s not like we can add some kind of magic automatic residential cutoff system (that would just make it worse) and residential distribution is already the problem! Residential solar is awesome (tho home batteries are largely elon propaganda…) but they only contribute to the above issue, not solve it. There are ways of addressing it, but they’re complicated and unglamorous.
I don’t see why home batteries are propaganda. Those prices are plummeting and they have decent payback times in some markets.
The reasons for getting solar is the same reasons for getting batteries.
Because home batteries, while provisionally useful in the same way as a standby generator (though the generator is going to be far more eco friendly than the batteries over their respective lifetimes), is a vastly inferior solution to the implementation of even local grid scale solutions. Also because there is essentially 0 infrastructure designed to handle said batteries, they wear out quite quickly at home scales (unless you’re using uncommon chemistries, but if you’re using iron-nickle batteries you’re not the target audience here) and because Elon popularized them with his “powerwall” bullshit entirely to pump the stock value of Tesla’s battery plant (which is it’s own spectacular saga I encourage you to look up, it’s a real trip).
Batteries in the walls are useful in niches, but the current technology which uses lipo/lion/lifepo4 chemistries is inherently flawed and a route to both dead linemen and massive amounts of E-waste. They could be useful potentially, but as it stands, it’s really bad right now.
You need to look up how much grid storage lithium batteries are being built. It’s exponential growth. Faster than solar.
The reason it’s worthwhile is because solar makes energy with 0 or near 0 price to the owner in certain places, if they store that and use it for later they save money. There are cost calculators out there and for certain markets they make sense.
Of course Tesla pushes it they got a product people want and it makes the consumer and Tesla money. Win win. That’s business, nothing shady about that.
Yes batteries are better on the grid but that’s for exactly the same reasons why solar is better on the grid.
O…kay but that doesn’t address anything I actually said.
After installation, a home owner has free electricity? I’m not trying to solve the issues for the power grid people, they have teams of people for that.
Spain and Portugal had almost complete blackouts today. You know who wouldn’t have had blackouts? The people with their own solar panels and windmills.
I acknowledge that there’s no real way to communicate sincerity online, but I’m gonna go ahead and promise I’m not trying to be a dick here when saying this:
I think you’re bonking up on the Dunning Kruger limit here, because that’s absolutely not how it works. Not only are the vast majority of homes not candidates for useful solar installs (you can pay someone to do it, but holy cow nearly every residential solar installer is a scam looking at you, Lumio International (how’s that RICO case going?)), but solar for home-use power generation is very much not the norm for a whole host of reasons (dead linemen one of the biggest ones) and the safety considerations for implementing it generally make it an onerous enough task to manage that it’s appeal is restricted largely to special interest users (homesteaders, preppers, S&R, power system enthusiasts, van life, etc ). There are ways this could be mitigated, but it would require a massive grid overhaul and additional constant upkeep beyond what any current grid already requires.
Here in Australia 37% of households have rooftop solar. Hardly “only special interest groups”.
Australia is an edge case for everything solar and I’ll quite happily admit that! Yay Australia, well done. That said I’d be very willing to bet that the majority of those are not-above-50%-ideal installs (don’t take that bet, I’m cheating)
Sorry, you’ve misunderstood, I was talking about direct home power generation being special interest, not residential solar in general. Aussies don’t have a higher rate for direct power generation than anywhere else because grids are, by and large, all suffering from the same fundamental design issues. I’m not at all attempting to argue that solar installs in general are special interest, and especially with the incredibly well thought out incentives the aus gvmt has been offering for both new construction and residential conversion/installation. 100% best handling of it in the world right now.