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Grids must be very stable because there is no storage at the end points. If electricity consumers are very OK to be without electricity for few hours per day th
by fpoling 7y ago
Grids must be very stable because there is no storage at the end points. If electricity consumers are very OK to be without electricity for few hours per day that alone makes grid much cheaper.
- ivanhoe 7y agoIdeal consumer, from the power network point of view, is as constant as possible. Each time you cut off a consumer node it creates harmonics and surges that need to be compensated upstream. Lots of nodes going on and off simultaneously (and they will as the whole parts of the city have the good sun at the same time) are engineering nightmare, existing grids are just not build to handle it, so they'll need to be upgraded, plus the maintenance costs will go up.
- URSpider94 7y agoIf every endpoint has enough storage to go days without being online, then that’s going to distribute a very large cost to the edge of the grid. Part of the reason that we have a power grid is so that we can pool usage and build capacity based on overall statistics, no absolute peak. Additionally, the cost to operate the grid is based upon the size of the distribution network and maximum carrying capacity. If we all build local storage that takes us off the grid 90% of the time, we are still going to have to pay the utility roughly the same amount to maintain the network as we do today. Check your power bill, the generation costs are probably less than half of your monthly total, so the rest is going to come back to you one way or the other.