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Australia was an early mass adopter of suburban rooftop solar and a similar issue played out here. It turns out that the cost of building and maintaining the g
by Andys 5y ago
Australia was an early mass adopter of suburban rooftop solar and a similar issue played out here.
It turns out that the cost of building and maintaining the grid is the majority of the cost of electricity to the home. As the cost of actual kWh trends to zero, the cost of the grid becomes the dominant cost.
If households with solar want to use the grid effectively as a battery, that has a defined and quite high cost, and has to be paid no matter how you structure it (monthly fee, tax, etc)
- hellisothers 5y agoThank you, this seems obvious to me now that you said it but it hadn’t occurred to me before. I still dislike the way this is being handled as it effectively discourages solar but am at least now sympathetic to the counter argument.
- Andys 5y agoYeah - they shouldn't use it as a tax while still in the early adoption phase. But as costs of having power delivered to your home are rising even as the generation cost falls, it is important to have some kind of support for low income families. There could be ways to lower the cost of the grid maintenance, but there's always going to have to be a connection fee.