3 ms·

This is great news. If costs climb rapidly, homeowners will switch to solar + battery + ( EV, heat pump water heater, induction stove) and disconnect from grid.

This is great news. If costs climb rapidly, homeowners will switch to solar + battery + ( EV, heat pump water heater, induction stove) and disconnect from grid. Grid disconnects will cause costs to rise even more, a virtuous cycle.

ghaff 1y ago
You're talking about big capital upgrades that very few people will make in existing homes. I sure won't.
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  Capital upgrades don't require capital, only monthly installments. US has the most advance financial packaging infrastructure that can package anything into a monthly payment. It will be a straight up comparison between (electricity bill from grid + gas for 2 ICE cars + natural gas bill) vs (solar + 2 EVs + heat pump water heater + induction stove). Also, most decisions are not financial but emotional (virtue signaling + status seeking + salesman's ability). Most poor people end up taking incredibly bad financial decisions because a salesman is able to sell. In Texas, if you can talk God/football/beer, and are not a complete idiot, you can sell anything. The people who bought 100K+ Tesla's before 2024 were not going by finance, nor are the people buying Teslas in 2025. A trillion dollar company is born just out of virtue signaling.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    And most of the monthly installments for things like solar are basically scams. The more you see the solar salesmen at your door or camped out in the front of Home Depot the scammier they tend to be. But it sounds like you might agree. I did get induction to replace a propane cooktop recently but that's only because I had to get a new range after a fire and induction probably made more sense than it did a few years back.
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Get a loan from your friendly credit union on better terms. It requires having a clue though, and being able to organize contractors, and / or do things yourself.
      - ghaff 1y ago
        Sounds exhausting. My electrical bill is about $100/month. Doesn't sound like it's worth a major project to decrease. Your mileage may differ of course.
        nine_k 1y ago
        Mine was north of $500 last month :( It starts looking like a battery + a DIY PV array installation just to power the air conditioning alone would pay for itself in one summer.
        ghaff 1y ago
        Of course, it depends where you live. I don't even have AC and don't have electric heat in the winter. So aside from, possibly, new construction, spending a lot of effort/money on PV/batteries/etc. doesn't make a lot of sense.
        anabelluis423 1y ago
        [dead]
        dzhiurgis 1y ago
        It will be $200 in few years. Could be 0.
        ghaff 1y ago
        It will absolutely not be zero once you consider costs, effort, future obligations, etc. But, by all means, do what makes sense for you.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lezojeda 1y ago
[dead]
throw0101c 1y ago
> This is great news. If costs climb rapidly, homeowners will switch to […] And what about renters (who are, in the US, often the poorer)? Electricity is an input to industrial and commercial operations, so if companies see their costs rise, they will probably raise prices to maintain margin: this will feed into higher prices everywhere (all goods and services).
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  They would be forced to pay even higher energy costs if they had to also compete with all these homes which now relies less on the grid.
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  > And what about renters (who are, in the US, often the poorer)? Then the apartment owners have another revenue stream, build a mini-grid and offer electricity cheaper than the grid. They already do many add-on services for additional revenue: garages, trash pickup, etc. > Electricity is an input to industrial and commercial operations, so if companies see their costs rise, they will probably raise prices to maintain margin: this will feed into higher prices everywhere (all goods and services). All production will continue to move to China, which has built and continues to build vast amounts of cheap electricity and infrastructure.
dkiebd 1y ago
[flagged]
pton_xd 1y ago
Wouldn't it be more efficient to centralize the generation of electricity and take advantage of economies of scale?
- mattnewton 1y ago
  Upgrading transmission infrastructure costs a lot of money (and bureaucracy). Especially in Oregon and northern California where the lines probably should be buried to stop risking wildfires. I’m not sure which path is actually more cost effective for solar+battery.
- nine_k 1y ago
  Solar generation has little economies of scale: PV arrays scale linearly, unlike turbines and electromechanical generators. Batteries also scale basically linearly; maybe you can have a better deal if you buy a truly massive amount of batteries, but I'm not certain it's so dramatic. Transmission costs seem to dominate the price structure; I currently pay a generating company about $0.1 / kWh, and pay Con Ed $0.25 / kWh for transmission of that energy. And this is in dense New York City; in suburbia or countryside the transmission lines have to be much longer. Centralized generation makes sense when the efficiency scales wildly non-linearly with size, like it does with nuclear reactors.
  - lostdog 1y ago
    Does solar scale linearly when you have to get onto roofs to install it? And when each roof is available for installation at different times, so only small crews can do it piecemeal?
    - nine_k 1y ago
      It certainly complicates things a bit, but the roofs are independent, so several small teams can independently work in parallel. So yes, it's sort of linear. Building a large solar installation may scale a bit sub-linearly, if you can e.g. order things in bulk at better prices, and have some electric assemblies done at a factory, more efficiently.
- 1y ago
danaris 1y ago
That cycle leaves out those who do not have the large amounts of money required to make those capital investments. Indeed, it pushes them farther and farther behind. That doesn't sound like "great news" to me unless you're a serious classist.

ghaff 1y ago

You're talking about big capital upgrades that very few people will make in existing homes. I sure won't.

thelastgallon 1y ago
Capital upgrades don't require capital, only monthly installments. US has the most advance financial packaging infrastructure that can package anything into a monthly payment. It will be a straight up comparison between (electricity bill from grid + gas for 2 ICE cars + natural gas bill) vs (solar + 2 EVs + heat pump water heater + induction stove). Also, most decisions are not financial but emotional (virtue signaling + status seeking + salesman's ability). Most poor people end up taking incredibly bad financial decisions because a salesman is able to sell. In Texas, if you can talk God/football/beer, and are not a complete idiot, you can sell anything. The people who bought 100K+ Tesla's before 2024 were not going by finance, nor are the people buying Teslas in 2025. A trillion dollar company is born just out of virtue signaling.
- ghaff 1y ago
  And most of the monthly installments for things like solar are basically scams. The more you see the solar salesmen at your door or camped out in the front of Home Depot the scammier they tend to be. But it sounds like you might agree. I did get induction to replace a propane cooktop recently but that's only because I had to get a new range after a fire and induction probably made more sense than it did a few years back.
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Get a loan from your friendly credit union on better terms. It requires having a clue though, and being able to organize contractors, and / or do things yourself.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      Sounds exhausting. My electrical bill is about $100/month. Doesn't sound like it's worth a major project to decrease. Your mileage may differ of course.
      - nine_k 1y ago
        Mine was north of $500 last month :( It starts looking like a battery + a DIY PV array installation just to power the air conditioning alone would pay for itself in one summer.
        ghaff 1y ago
        Of course, it depends where you live. I don't even have AC and don't have electric heat in the winter. So aside from, possibly, new construction, spending a lot of effort/money on PV/batteries/etc. doesn't make a lot of sense.
        anabelluis423 1y ago
        [dead]
      - dzhiurgis 1y ago
        It will be $200 in few years. Could be 0.
        ghaff 1y ago
        It will absolutely not be zero once you consider costs, effort, future obligations, etc. But, by all means, do what makes sense for you.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

lezojeda 1y ago

[dead]

throw0101c 1y ago

> This is great news. If costs climb rapidly, homeowners will switch to […] And what about renters (who are, in the US, often the poorer)? Electricity is an input to industrial and commercial operations, so if companies see their costs rise, they will probably raise prices to maintain margin: this will feed into higher prices everywhere (all goods and services).

ViewTrick1002 1y ago
They would be forced to pay even higher energy costs if they had to also compete with all these homes which now relies less on the grid.
thelastgallon 1y ago
> And what about renters (who are, in the US, often the poorer)? Then the apartment owners have another revenue stream, build a mini-grid and offer electricity cheaper than the grid. They already do many add-on services for additional revenue: garages, trash pickup, etc. > Electricity is an input to industrial and commercial operations, so if companies see their costs rise, they will probably raise prices to maintain margin: this will feed into higher prices everywhere (all goods and services). All production will continue to move to China, which has built and continues to build vast amounts of cheap electricity and infrastructure.

dkiebd 1y ago

[flagged]

pton_xd 1y ago

Wouldn't it be more efficient to centralize the generation of electricity and take advantage of economies of scale?

mattnewton 1y ago
Upgrading transmission infrastructure costs a lot of money (and bureaucracy). Especially in Oregon and northern California where the lines probably should be buried to stop risking wildfires. I’m not sure which path is actually more cost effective for solar+battery.
nine_k 1y ago
Solar generation has little economies of scale: PV arrays scale linearly, unlike turbines and electromechanical generators. Batteries also scale basically linearly; maybe you can have a better deal if you buy a truly massive amount of batteries, but I'm not certain it's so dramatic. Transmission costs seem to dominate the price structure; I currently pay a generating company about $0.1 / kWh, and pay Con Ed $0.25 / kWh for transmission of that energy. And this is in dense New York City; in suburbia or countryside the transmission lines have to be much longer. Centralized generation makes sense when the efficiency scales wildly non-linearly with size, like it does with nuclear reactors.
- lostdog 1y ago
  Does solar scale linearly when you have to get onto roofs to install it? And when each roof is available for installation at different times, so only small crews can do it piecemeal?
  - nine_k 1y ago
    It certainly complicates things a bit, but the roofs are independent, so several small teams can independently work in parallel. So yes, it's sort of linear. Building a large solar installation may scale a bit sub-linearly, if you can e.g. order things in bulk at better prices, and have some electric assemblies done at a factory, more efficiently.
1y ago

danaris 1y ago

That cycle leaves out those who do not have the large amounts of money required to make those capital investments. Indeed, it pushes them farther and farther behind. That doesn't sound like "great news" to me unless you're a serious classist.