sp4149 said:
wifeisafurd said:
Going a different direction. In SoCal, the trend among people with means is to cut the cord from SCE. It has nothing to do with cuts in service due to fires - that is a NorCal thing. It is that SCE costs a lot for connections for a new house and also causes significant construction delays which in large houses means a lot of additional costs. So owners go solar with back-up batteries and have found this reliable and cost-effective. About half the major remodels/new houses in the area we live in OC have gone the way. With black-outs in NorCal, wondering why people are not going that way (or maybe they are)? My guess is that in the long run as technology improves and becomes cheaper, power companies in warm areas will go under or be expensive alternatives just for the poor. Might add the environment does a lot better with this approach.
As the country trends to daytime renewables, the price for darktime energy (those 4-9 peak time commercials) will skyrocket. Battery backup technology is a generation (developmental) away from being effective for middle class households. Right now solar installation companies are warranteeing solar panels for 25 years and batteries for no more than ten years. Solar power battery disclosures indicate a 10% annual reduction in storage capacity. Basically after five years you may be at half original storage and after ten years you have a dead battery. When batteries have the same long term performance expectations as solar panels, they may allow you to go off grid completely.
However the infrastructure will have to remain in place for at least a generation and it's maintenance will have to be paid for by ALL. Most likely this will be by creation of special districts to own, operate and manage the electrical infrastructure. Just like your taxes pay for roads if you do not drive, schools if you don't have children, fire protection if you don't start fires, the maintenance of the electrical distribution grid will have to be paid by a tax assessment, not in utility rates, Take a look at your utility bill, subtract out the cost of the purchased utility (electrical), the remainder is the cost of maintenance of the utility system. Going off the grid means that someone else subsidizes your cost of street lights, traffic lights, drainage pumps, etc... within their utitilty bill. Sooner or later ratepayers are going to demand that the infrastructure costs for services that benefit the entire community, must be paid by everyone in the community.
Whither the future? Do we continue to allow the off-the-grid types to benefit from services they don't reimburse?
Maybe we designate properties as do not assist; no fire or police, medical, or emergency response; let them burn, slide, flood, to protect adjacent areas that want protection. Afterwards the local government can neutralize the property as a public nuisance without reimbursement to the property owners. The Grump's proposal for infrastructure was 'privatize'; not working now, little hope for the future. Radical changes needed.
Where to begin:
A $75K battery on a several million dollar house, which in the Bay Area is not much house, just doesn't make that much difference, especially when your connection costs and dealing with the utility during construction will cost more. One problem with urban California is trying to determine what is middle class?
A $75K add on for "middle class" in most states is not cost-effective, where housing costs in the hundred of thousands of dollars in sales price and you are not soaked by the utility company.
The technology is changing and I agree that by the next generation batteries are going to be available for most homes, and likely will be included in new homes in warm weather areas. Also the investor owned utilities will be stuck with poor customers, and probably will use their political power to have the state subsidize their rapidly outdated investment in power grids, with the costs, as usual, passed on to taxpayers. OTOH, good old liberal California may take the approach that it has on cars, and instead subsidize lower income folks to buy batteries, leaving those big bad utility companies to change their business model, probably through bankruptcy reorgs, while the government invests in solar and solar batteries (and passes the cost on to taxpayers). Certainly, an argument can be made this is the most green approach.
The comment on current battery length is a little more nuanced than presented. The typical battery is warrantied for 5,000 cycles or 10 years at 70 percent of its original capacity. This means they manufacture is guarantying that at the end of the warranty, the battery will have lost no more than 30 percent of its original ability to store energy. I think you will find the conventional thinking is that today's batteries will last around 15 years before it is optimal to replace them; of course, that will vary in each situation and we are talking about projections. (As an example, you can go on line and look at the EnergySage warranty and discussion).
The interesting thing is the change in technology, as everyone is now developing and manufacturing solar battery products, from automotive companies to tech startups. The auto makers may not offer the most revolutionary technology, but probably have a more long lasting product.. By contrast, the tech compaines have new high-performing technology (they can even integrate with the utility's feed to have consistent level of energy always, thereby protecting equipment from spikes, brown-outs, etc. but less of a track record on long-term functionality. But the pace of improvement in batteries is accelerating because of all the different companies entering the field. And the reason for entering the field is everyone thinks the way the world is going solar and towards cutting the cord from utilities.