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I don’t follow. You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd

I don’t follow. You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd. Millions of individual homes running their own solar, even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite feasible. It’s happening today. Having it be an arrangement where a power provider owns and maintains the panels isn’t necessary or desirable. Lease-to-own or outright purchase by homeowners works fine.

throwaway894345 6y ago
> You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd. If we could cheaply and efficiently transport hot water over miles and miles like we can with electricity then communal water heating would be much more common. Note that communal water heating is fairly normal (i.e., not "absurd") in large apartment, condominium, and commercial office buildings (one large boiler providing hot water for all tenants). > Millions of individual homes running their own solar, even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite feasible. It’s happening today. The question isn't whether there's an issue hooking individual residential solar installations up to the grid--no one disputes that. The relevant question is how expensive is it to build and maintain tens of millions of individual rooftop solar installations versus several orders of magnitude fewer, larger installations. According to https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-need-one https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-..., it would cost at least ~$2.8M to generate 1MW via rooftop solar systems while it would cost only about ~$1M to generate the same amount of energy via solar farm.
- rhodozelia 6y ago
  Given that residential customers pay quite a bit more than the wholesale rate for power rooftop solar must be an investment that pays for itself or nobody would do it!
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    No one is disputing that it pays for itself, but that doesn’t mean it competes with farmed solar.
    - rhodozelia 6y ago
      Uh ... it does compete with farmed solar? Anyone deciding whether to buy power from the utility or generate their own is doing the analysis to see which “wins” the competition.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        I wouldn’t call 2-3X the price “competition” and whether people were buying rooftop solar doesn’t refute the cost analysis.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> You could make the same argument about communal water heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of course such a position would be absurd. If we could cheaply and efficiently transport hot water over miles and miles like we can with electricity then communal water heating would be much more common. Note that communal water heating is fairly normal (i.e., not "absurd") in large apartment, condominium, and commercial office buildings (one large boiler providing hot water for all tenants). > Millions of individual homes running their own solar, even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite feasible. It’s happening today. The question isn't whether there's an issue hooking individual residential solar installations up to the grid--no one disputes that. The relevant question is how expensive is it to build and maintain tens of millions of individual rooftop solar installations versus several orders of magnitude fewer, larger installations. According to https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-need-one https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-..., it would cost at least ~$2.8M to generate 1MW via rooftop solar systems while it would cost only about ~$1M to generate the same amount of energy via solar farm.

rhodozelia 6y ago
Given that residential customers pay quite a bit more than the wholesale rate for power rooftop solar must be an investment that pays for itself or nobody would do it!
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  No one is disputing that it pays for itself, but that doesn’t mean it competes with farmed solar.
  - rhodozelia 6y ago
    Uh ... it does compete with farmed solar? Anyone deciding whether to buy power from the utility or generate their own is doing the analysis to see which “wins” the competition.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      I wouldn’t call 2-3X the price “competition” and whether people were buying rooftop solar doesn’t refute the cost analysis.