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Rooftop solar only helps in scenarios like that if you also have an attached storage system. You're not going to power your fridge/oven/dryer directly from the

Rooftop solar only helps in scenarios like that if you also have an attached storage system. You're not going to power your fridge/oven/dryer directly from the panels. I would also like to see rooftop solar become widespread in the near future. But I think for most people to get on board, they'll need to be able to break even on the investment within something like 3 years.

bamboozled 9y ago
"Rooftop solar only helps in scenarios like that if you also have an attached storage system." These exist nowadays [1] [1] https://www.tesla.com/powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall
- sremani 9y ago
  Unless there is a some level of prepper in you, those powerwalls do not make any economic sense. Most of the Solars that SolarCity installs are grid tie-in, means no power at substation means no power even with those panels on roof.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Customer located storage solutions do make economic sense in many situtions, that's why some utilities will pay you to have one in your home and let them control it's charge/discharge when they need to. Usually that economic benefit is left on the table due to the utility being poorly regulated but that's subtly different from the thing itself not making economic sense.
    - snowwindwaves 9y ago
      Can you provide a link to these any of these utilities? Most are so focused on reliability they are quite resistant to pushing the limits. There must have been some cost savings such as avoiding building or upgrading a substation
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Green Mountain Power https://www.tesla.com/blog/next-step-in-energy-storage-aggregation https://www.tesla.com/blog/next-step-in-energy-storage-aggre... and Pacific Gas & Electric http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-and-pge-collaborate-distributed-energy-resource-projects http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-and-pge-co...
        snowwindwaves 9y ago
        the PG&E project is a technology demonstration which is a nice first step green mountain power appears to be a retailer of electricity and not a distribution company; they don't own any power lines. The distribution co. will have to be on board to safely accept power flowing in the opposite direction (from the load), and for the most part they have no incentive for this so don't really care.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Wikipedia says they own 21,000Km of power lines: Green Mountain Power (GMP), a subsidiary of Gaz Métro, is the largest electricity distributor in Vermont, serving over 70% of the market and more than 260,000 customers. GMP’s core business includes the distribution, transportation, generation, purchase and sale of electricity in Vermont and, to a lesser degree, electricity transportation in New Hampshire and electricity generation in the states of New York, Maine and Connecticut. The GMP network comprises over 1,500 km of overhead transmission lines, 18,000 km of overhead distribution lines and 1,600 km of underground distribution lines, located mainly in Vermont but also extending to New Hampshire and New York.[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_M%C3%A9tro#Vermont_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_M%C3%A9tro#Vermont_operati... You may be confusing them with Green Mountain Energy, which got spun off and bought by someone else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_Energy
      - lutorm 9y ago
        If US utilities were focused on reliability, they would have stopped putting power lines above ground a long time ago. The power grid in the US is way more unreliable than any other country I've experienced, and I can only think that it's because the utilities are so profit-focused that they put lowering infrastructure costs above losing a little revenue due to power outages here and there. After all, the real societal costs due to unreliable power are completely externalized onto their customers. The utilities are fine talking about reliability when it comes to newfangled competitors like solar, but that's mostly because they're a threat to their bottom line, not because they actually care about reliability.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Storage makes it better, but even just being able to charge your laptop, phone, car and run your air-con during the day would be a win. I don't think most solar installations are designed to operate without a grid connection though, and even not all powerwall installations can run off grid. Though I'm not sure that they beat a generator (diesel or connected to your gas line) if you really anticipate regular grid outages and probably won't for a while.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Exactly. We need to decentralize energy generation (solar) AND cellphone signals (mesh networking). Here I expound on it at length: https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >Storage makes it better, but even just being able to charge your laptop, phone, car and run your air-con during the day would be a win. You mean the car that is parked during the day in your office parking lot a few tens miles away and the laptop and phone that you are carrying with you? Seriously, without some form of (efficient) storage system, the whole thing depends on exchanges on the grid. Off grid - as I see it - is a very nice solution (still with some minimal storage) for a hut in the woods, where everything is specifically designed for low power (and where you don't have a dishwasher, a washer, etc.), replacing - in a more environment friendly way - the noisy generator, but still it remains something good for youe being there on - say - every other weekend. Having an el-cheapo (diesel or gasoline) small generator for emergencies is handy, but only for those hopefully very rare emergencies, the cost for a good quality (suitable to run often and in several hours stretches) generator and for the fuel is not competitive with solar (though of course the initial cost of solar is still higher).
  - melling 9y ago
    Everyone seems to be forgetting that you can get paid to transmit your extra power back to the grid during the day. Air conditioning, for example, is high during the day. You might not need it at home but someone else will.
jason_s 9y ago
>hey'll need to be able to break even on the investment within something like 3 years. ???? That's a 33% discount rate. Kind of insane expectations... I put solar on my house in 2014, after doing a bunch of analysis showing the breakeven point was 8-12 years. After having it and checking the utility bills, it looks like it's going to be 10-11 years. Maybe less if they raise their rates.

bamboozled 9y ago

"Rooftop solar only helps in scenarios like that if you also have an attached storage system." These exist nowadays [1] [1] https://www.tesla.com/powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

sremani 9y ago
Unless there is a some level of prepper in you, those powerwalls do not make any economic sense. Most of the Solars that SolarCity installs are grid tie-in, means no power at substation means no power even with those panels on roof.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Customer located storage solutions do make economic sense in many situtions, that's why some utilities will pay you to have one in your home and let them control it's charge/discharge when they need to. Usually that economic benefit is left on the table due to the utility being poorly regulated but that's subtly different from the thing itself not making economic sense.
  - snowwindwaves 9y ago
    Can you provide a link to these any of these utilities? Most are so focused on reliability they are quite resistant to pushing the limits. There must have been some cost savings such as avoiding building or upgrading a substation
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Green Mountain Power https://www.tesla.com/blog/next-step-in-energy-storage-aggregation https://www.tesla.com/blog/next-step-in-energy-storage-aggre... and Pacific Gas & Electric http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-and-pge-collaborate-distributed-energy-resource-projects http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-and-pge-co...
      - snowwindwaves 9y ago
        the PG&E project is a technology demonstration which is a nice first step green mountain power appears to be a retailer of electricity and not a distribution company; they don't own any power lines. The distribution co. will have to be on board to safely accept power flowing in the opposite direction (from the load), and for the most part they have no incentive for this so don't really care.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Wikipedia says they own 21,000Km of power lines: Green Mountain Power (GMP), a subsidiary of Gaz Métro, is the largest electricity distributor in Vermont, serving over 70% of the market and more than 260,000 customers. GMP’s core business includes the distribution, transportation, generation, purchase and sale of electricity in Vermont and, to a lesser degree, electricity transportation in New Hampshire and electricity generation in the states of New York, Maine and Connecticut. The GMP network comprises over 1,500 km of overhead transmission lines, 18,000 km of overhead distribution lines and 1,600 km of underground distribution lines, located mainly in Vermont but also extending to New Hampshire and New York.[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_M%C3%A9tro#Vermont_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_M%C3%A9tro#Vermont_operati... You may be confusing them with Green Mountain Energy, which got spun off and bought by someone else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_Energy
    - lutorm 9y ago
      If US utilities were focused on reliability, they would have stopped putting power lines above ground a long time ago. The power grid in the US is way more unreliable than any other country I've experienced, and I can only think that it's because the utilities are so profit-focused that they put lowering infrastructure costs above losing a little revenue due to power outages here and there. After all, the real societal costs due to unreliable power are completely externalized onto their customers. The utilities are fine talking about reliability when it comes to newfangled competitors like solar, but that's mostly because they're a threat to their bottom line, not because they actually care about reliability.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

Storage makes it better, but even just being able to charge your laptop, phone, car and run your air-con during the day would be a win. I don't think most solar installations are designed to operate without a grid connection though, and even not all powerwall installations can run off grid. Though I'm not sure that they beat a generator (diesel or connected to your gas line) if you really anticipate regular grid outages and probably won't for a while.

EGreg 9y ago
Exactly. We need to decentralize energy generation (solar) AND cellphone signals (mesh networking). Here I expound on it at length: https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY
jaclaz 9y ago
>Storage makes it better, but even just being able to charge your laptop, phone, car and run your air-con during the day would be a win. You mean the car that is parked during the day in your office parking lot a few tens miles away and the laptop and phone that you are carrying with you? Seriously, without some form of (efficient) storage system, the whole thing depends on exchanges on the grid. Off grid - as I see it - is a very nice solution (still with some minimal storage) for a hut in the woods, where everything is specifically designed for low power (and where you don't have a dishwasher, a washer, etc.), replacing - in a more environment friendly way - the noisy generator, but still it remains something good for youe being there on - say - every other weekend. Having an el-cheapo (diesel or gasoline) small generator for emergencies is handy, but only for those hopefully very rare emergencies, the cost for a good quality (suitable to run often and in several hours stretches) generator and for the fuel is not competitive with solar (though of course the initial cost of solar is still higher).
- melling 9y ago
  Everyone seems to be forgetting that you can get paid to transmit your extra power back to the grid during the day. Air conditioning, for example, is high during the day. You might not need it at home but someone else will.

jason_s 9y ago

>hey'll need to be able to break even on the investment within something like 3 years. ???? That's a 33% discount rate. Kind of insane expectations... I put solar on my house in 2014, after doing a bunch of analysis showing the breakeven point was 8-12 years. After having it and checking the utility bills, it looks like it's going to be 10-11 years. Maybe less if they raise their rates.