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Good to see solar power getting more common, but we need batteries and storage to truly end carbon emissions.

verisimi 3y ago
Yes. And the consumer is meant to buy the batteries. And these (expensive) batteries only last 7 years of so. You could say, electricity production/generation is being outsourced to the consumer, who will still pay bills, but now will also assume some of the infrastructure costs too.
- yukkuri 3y ago
  Where the heck did you get that idea from? The batteries discussed in this article are storage stations that are part of the grid, not something bought and maintained by the consumer.
  - hrkfmud50k 3y ago
    because NEM 3 makes new rooftop solar installations uneconomical without batteries. though even with batteries they're still pretty uneconomical
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      Because NEM2 wasn't sustainable long term. TFA is talking about we don't have enough batteries for all the solar and how it might be necessary to reduce solar production during peak times. That's why we don't want to keep incentivizing solar without batteries.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    I'm responding to a comment that mentions batteries and talking about personal experience, for a home solution... This is relevant as a lot of solar uses private roofs. In the UK, you could sell all your unused excess roof solar energy back to the grid. But this is at a wildly reduced rate - fractions of the cost you would pay for electricity. So you would then need batteries to store the energy... But then you incur the drawbacks of these (high maintaince costs). With all these personal solar solutions, with batteries, panels etc being bought and provided by the consumer, it seems an obvious point to me that quite a lot of electric infrastructure is moving to the private domain, with discounted electricity then being sold back to the public utilities.
vlovich123 3y ago
Solar+batteries remains insanely expensive putting nuclear to shame (nuclear in many areas is still way cheaper than solar without batteries)

Yes. And the consumer is meant to buy the batteries. And these (expensive) batteries only last 7 years of so. You could say, electricity production/generation is being outsourced to the consumer, who will still pay bills, but now will also assume some of the infrastructure costs too.

yukkuri 3y ago
Where the heck did you get that idea from? The batteries discussed in this article are storage stations that are part of the grid, not something bought and maintained by the consumer.
- hrkfmud50k 3y ago
  because NEM 3 makes new rooftop solar installations uneconomical without batteries. though even with batteries they're still pretty uneconomical
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    Because NEM2 wasn't sustainable long term. TFA is talking about we don't have enough batteries for all the solar and how it might be necessary to reduce solar production during peak times. That's why we don't want to keep incentivizing solar without batteries.
- verisimi 3y ago
  I'm responding to a comment that mentions batteries and talking about personal experience, for a home solution... This is relevant as a lot of solar uses private roofs. In the UK, you could sell all your unused excess roof solar energy back to the grid. But this is at a wildly reduced rate - fractions of the cost you would pay for electricity. So you would then need batteries to store the energy... But then you incur the drawbacks of these (high maintaince costs). With all these personal solar solutions, with batteries, panels etc being bought and provided by the consumer, it seems an obvious point to me that quite a lot of electric infrastructure is moving to the private domain, with discounted electricity then being sold back to the public utilities.

vlovich123 3y ago

Solar+batteries remains insanely expensive putting nuclear to shame (nuclear in many areas is still way cheaper than solar without batteries)