2 ms·

A decent rule of thumb is that the cost of residential electricity is half for transmission and distribution, half for generation. So save 50% on your home powe

A decent rule of thumb is that the cost of residential electricity is half for transmission and distribution, half for generation. So save 50% on your home power bill if electricity became free to generate but still had to be delivered from centralized plants. If household solar and small-scale storage get ridiculously cheap, grid defection may be cheaper than buying large-scale renewable output from the grid, but utility scale solar plants can generate more real output per nominal watt and cost less to build per nominal watt. Unless your local electricity system's history is weird (unneeded grid capacity built in Australia being paid for by households, Energiewende that shifted costs away from big industrial customers and toward individuals in Germany) then grid defection probably won't be the lowest-cost option in the next 5 years.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
On the topic of grid defection, in some areas where gas heating for homes is common, there is a move to stop hooking new houses up to the gas grid, instead having all heating and cooking done via electricity. That adds another interesting angle on these calculations, since not hooking up in the first place is obviously cheaper than hooking it up and then not using it.
Inthenameofmine 10y ago
What you call grid defection might very well happen in currently developing countries though, just as they never adopted telephone lines or stable postal services. In most developing countries the grid is the problem, not the production. They often lose more than 50% of the electricity before it gets O the point of use. They also need to make large scale coordinated upfront investments, which i difficult with weak governments. In a way, solar + cheap storage could become an economic and social democratisation force.

2 ms·

A decent rule of thumb is that the cost of residential electricity is half for transmission and distribution, half for generation. So save 50% on your home powe

by philipkglass 10y ago

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
On the topic of grid defection, in some areas where gas heating for homes is common, there is a move to stop hooking new houses up to the gas grid, instead having all heating and cooking done via electricity. That adds another interesting angle on these calculations, since not hooking up in the first place is obviously cheaper than hooking it up and then not using it.
Inthenameofmine 10y ago
What you call grid defection might very well happen in currently developing countries though, just as they never adopted telephone lines or stable postal services. In most developing countries the grid is the problem, not the production. They often lose more than 50% of the electricity before it gets O the point of use. They also need to make large scale coordinated upfront investments, which i difficult with weak governments. In a way, solar + cheap storage could become an economic and social democratisation force.