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Well electricity takes the lowest resistance path (read shortest). I have solar panels and my neighbor uses electricity to heat their home. So my solar panels

Well electricity takes the lowest resistance path (read shortest). I have solar panels and my neighbor uses electricity to heat their home. So my solar panels heat their house, but the DSO gets to charge the neighbor as much as if the electricity would come from across the country for transmission. If we'd move the meter a bit further we could share. Plus the energy company I sell to and they buy from charges something as well. If we could cut out two middlemen the I would earn the same but their bill would be about 25-50% smaller. Which incidentally you could invest in on-prem batteries and I would use their battery energy to heat my home during the night. Little microgrid community. Scale that up to a neighborhood and the effects start to add up quite nicely. But I do agree with you that integrated grids that span large areas are essential for grid stability and increase the odds of clean energy is being produced at all times needed.

phicoh 6y ago
At the end of the day, the capacity of the grid has to be such that you can deal with the worst case situation. So the grid has to handle the case where it is cold and your solar panels are off line. This means that your neighbor would still have to pay for the grid even if they would directly get electricity from you.
cool_dude85 6y ago
You might save 25% on your bill, but put the meter any farther up the line and wait for a natural disaster to hit, for example. Get a quote to have you and your neighbor's pole, transformer, etc. fixed up and then figure out what you saved. Heck, you can probably just wait to replace you and your neighbor's transformer and see. Keep putting your meter further up the line, to get the economies of scale needed so your microgrid can have lineworkers, engineers, meter readers (for all your own meters, you have to portion costs out to the individuals in the grid)... congratulations, you just made a new utility company.

phicoh 6y ago

At the end of the day, the capacity of the grid has to be such that you can deal with the worst case situation. So the grid has to handle the case where it is cold and your solar panels are off line. This means that your neighbor would still have to pay for the grid even if they would directly get electricity from you.

cool_dude85 6y ago

You might save 25% on your bill, but put the meter any farther up the line and wait for a natural disaster to hit, for example. Get a quote to have you and your neighbor's pole, transformer, etc. fixed up and then figure out what you saved. Heck, you can probably just wait to replace you and your neighbor's transformer and see. Keep putting your meter further up the line, to get the economies of scale needed so your microgrid can have lineworkers, engineers, meter readers (for all your own meters, you have to portion costs out to the individuals in the grid)... congratulations, you just made a new utility company.