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Batteries are still a huge cost. To be truly off-grid, you need a lot of storage capacity. You could easily spend 2 to 4x as much on batteries as on PV panels r

Batteries are still a huge cost. To be truly off-grid, you need a lot of storage capacity. You could easily spend 2 to 4x as much on batteries as on PV panels right now. The cost of batteries (or other energy storage methods) needs to go down, because PV panels on their own are just not quite good enough for residential. I'm out of the house during most or all peak hours for solar generation. I would need one or two Tesla Powerwall 2's in order to be off-grid. I also don't have an (electric) car. If I had a car, I would need more energy storage in order to be able to charge the car at night. Though of course, electric cars might also be charged at work during the daytime, directly from PV panels

diafygi 10y ago
The goal of the storage industry is not to take everyone off grid. The goal is to increase the penetration capacity of intermittent renewables. You can get to 50% penetration without storage, but you need demand response and storage to push beyond 50%. So, most storage isn't priced to be off-grid, it's priced to provide the most value to the consumer (demand response, peak shaving, backup power, etc.). At the end of the day it's all about economics, and there's lots of economics in favor of connected storage in addition to off-grid storage.