3 ms·
When solar was becoming affordable, there was a lot of talk in the industry about "grid defection" exactly as you describe, but it didn't come to pass. Now tha
by maliker 3y ago
When solar was becoming affordable, there was a lot of talk in the industry about "grid defection" exactly as you describe, but it didn't come to pass.
Now that energy storage is getting radically cheaper too, I think there's a decent chance that what you predict could happen. It would be... enormously bad.
And I agree load growth plays a part in all this. The big growth will come from electric vehicles--once cars are all electric, that will roughly double the electricity demand.
- hadlock 3y agoRoofs generally last for 30 years. In my neighborhood at least, which was all built-out in a 3 year period in the mid-1970s, most of the roofs were replaced about 10-15 years ago (they're rated for 30 years, but everyone pushes their luck as far as possible). Because they replaced their roof pre-~2014 it wasn't cheap or common to do so and thus very little solar was installed at that point. Those who have had their roof replaced in the last 5-7 years went ahead and put solar on top. My guess would be that when the neighborhood "cycles" through new roofs again in ~15 years, more than half will elect to put in solar or solar/battery combo. We are due for a new roof in 2-3 years and plan on doing solar at that time, and possibly even battery.