Parts of Australia have this. They have so much rooftop solar (and reliable access to plenty of sun) and battery there that effectively centralized power is les

Parts of Australia have this. They have so much rooftop solar (and reliable access to plenty of sun) and battery there that effectively centralized power is less and less relevant there and quite a few parts of especially southern Australia effectively run on solar and battery for most of the time. It has indeed made the grid there more reliable; not less. Decentralization is mainly bad for centralized power companies as it erodes their monopoly and forces them to deal with the notion that their power is too expensive most of the time. Intermittent scarcity and over supply of energy (both are a thing) also leads to different consumption patterns. People valuing cheap energy when it is scarce invest in batteries that they charge when there's a surplus. Others buy at a premium or simply shift when they consume their energy. Demand shaping is also something that can be incentivized financially. Of course that works great in Australia but other parts of the world have other options like wind, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, etc. Which is why places like Norway and parts of Canada are also mostly running on clean energy at this point. The key is actually not isolating but interconnecting. Norway is part of a connected grid that spans most of Europe with a market where you can sell energy and buy energy. Norway is an energy exporter at this point and there are plenty of countries importing their power to supplement their own generation when it falls short. That's why countries like Germany are now predominantly wind and solar powered and yet doesn't have blackouts when there's no wind. Like today (gloomy winter day with barely any wind here in Berlin). But there's still plenty of wind elsewhere. Germany imports almost as much power as that it exports each year.