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The grid is HUGELY expensive, an absolutely massive cost for our electricity. And it would still be expensive in a well-regulated environment where you can qui

The grid is HUGELY expensive, an absolutely massive cost for our electricity. And it would still be expensive in a well-regulated environment where you can quickly and easily get permission to build, without, say, voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1]. Here in the US we have a very very poorly regulated environment for adding to our grid, it moves slower than molasses and there are so many parties that have unilateral veto points. The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event. Now imagine a world where there's tons of bribes to government officials all along the way to get a grid going (in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs). Or there's bribes to get a permit for the large centralized electriticy generator. And you have to deal with importing a whole new skill set and trades, on top of importing all the materials, fuel, etc. Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Out in greenfield, solar plus storage is so revolutionary. This is bigger than going straight to mobile phones instead of landlines. Africa is going to get so much power, and it's all going to be clean, renewable energy. Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades that have continuously and steadily improved this technology, it's one of the bright lights of humanity these days. [1] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/maine-jury-clears-avangrids-145-mile-transmission-line-reversing-ballot-v/648209/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/maine-jury-clears-avangrids...

whatever1 1y ago
Poor countries have different problems that don’t let decentralization to work. Local gangs go around and demand protection money and if you don’t pay up your solar panels will unfortunately suffer some “accidental” catastrophic damage.
- datadrivenangel 1y ago
  Apparently solar panels that have fake cracks are moderately popular in some parts of the world to deter theft and similar behavior.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    Counterfeit panels are also a huge problem https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/507496-knock-off-solar-panel-sellers-taking-south-africans-for-a-ride.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/507496-knock-off-solar...
- skissane 1y ago
  Poor countries have these problems, yes, but they don’t stop whatever, they just add some expense to it. In certain areas of Mexico, businesses have to pay taxes to the local cartel, but if you do, they’ll leave you alone-and they know that if they demand too much, that’s actually undermining their own self-interest. Effectively, the cartel is just another level of local government, taxing you like all the others do. An armed gang or warlord somewhere in Africa or Syria or Afghanistan very often functions similarly.
- samdoesnothing 1y ago
  Sounds like taxes and government to me and that hasn't (so far) stopped people from building. In fact many people here praise those gangs, and wish they were bigger and demand more money.
tick_tock_tick 1y ago
> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. How do they deal with the cost of storage for anything non trivial completely eclipsing any savings?
- energy123 1y ago
  Well it doesn't eclipse savings, you can still get about 12% annual ROI in developing countries with a battery. And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day.
  - tick_tock_tick 1y ago
    > Well it doesn't eclipse savings I mean it's several hundred fold more expensive I'd call that "eclipse" but maybe you have a higher threshold for that word? > And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day. I mean I guess that's an option if you don't want these places to advance in quality of life or produce much of anything.
    - energy123 1y ago
      It increases costs of a solar system to about 1.5-2.2x (so an extra 50-120%), not several hundred fold. The hybrid inverter is slightly more expensive than a normal inverter, then you add the 4-16 kWh battery which is pretty cheap nowadays.
mothballed 1y ago
Solar bribery is interestingly the exact opposite in some of the USA, where the solar contractors have basically gotten in bed with government for regulatory capture on the market. Most places in my state you need an electrician license, permits, bonding, insurance, a special 'solar' warranty, and inspections if you want solar. I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid without anyone from the government ever even looking at it or taking money for it. If I wanted to add a solar system, it basically completely fucked everything and I would have had to gone through the normal permitting and inspection system for my house which would have made even building the house basically impossible for me.
- datadrivenangel 1y ago
  Where did you build a house without a permit and get away with it?
  - mothballed 1y ago
    I have a permit. And the permit basically says I don't have to get it inspected, show building plans, or do anything but tip my hat to the government. Unless I add solar.
    - foobarian 1y ago
      I feel very optimistic about battery storage for this reason. I would love nothing more than be able to run on battery for a week or so so I can give a middle finger to the utility and just rip out the grid connection. No more solar inverter or power limit permits needed.
      - coffeebeqn 1y ago
        You probably still want an inverter to get AC for your household. I’m also still waiting for the house size batteries to come down in price before pulling the trigger apart from a small 200W setup for fun
w10-1 1y ago
> Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough.
- badpun 1y ago
  Some of the sacrifice is not voluntary - most panels contain parts and/or materials made by slaves in work camps.
  - omnimus 1y ago
    Just like iPhones.
    - epistasis 1y ago
      I think it's a bit different, I never heard a story of iPhones being manufactured like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 However most of the "slave" talk these days comes from highly politicized sources, so it's hard to cut through to the truth. For example, it's not likely that there's enough Uyghur slave labor to be involved with "most" of the polysilicon even from Xinjiang, much less the entire world's supply. IMHO, like the cobalt getting mined by children from artisanal-scale mines in Africa, it's a very serious issue that gets trotted out more as a political football against the entire technology, rather than expressed as an earnest concern to solve the underlying problem.
      - bdangubic 1y ago
        > I think it's a bit different nice to discuss the degrees of slavery, little slavery is cool, little more perhaps not as much…
        vkou 1y ago
justapassenger 1y ago
> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Does decentralized solar plus batteries give you same amount of reliability? How many days without sunny weather can you survive without having to change your energy use habits? Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXTREMELY expensive. And grid has a lot of 9s.
- roywiggins 1y ago
  The grid has a lot of 9s, but in a lot of places losing power for a day or two after a storm is not unusual at all. The grid per se being fine but your actual neighborhood being dark for a couple days is a pretty common experience in some places.
  - tekchip 1y ago
    Can confirm. I live in a US city and the only 9 involved is maybe the very first number. I've lived here just over a year and we've had 1 full day without power and probably 8 to 10 short outages between a few seconds and several 10s of minutes. I'm adding batteries and solar permitting be damned.
    - sethherr 1y ago
      Wild! I’ve lived in Chicago and San Francisco and have never lost power for more than an hour. And can’t remember the last time it went out at all, maybe 2 years ago? What city do you live in?
      - daemonologist 1y ago
        I'm (not GP) in the Chicago burbs and expect to lose power 1-3 times a year. Usually it's for less than twelve hours but last year it was out for three days straight. Most recent outage was ~10 minutes long a couple weeks ago - I still haven't set the oven clock. The cause around here is usually storm + trees + above ground power lines, plus a low enough population density that you're not top priority for the utility company.
honkostani 1y ago
[dead]
Joel_Mckay 1y ago
There are a few US Solar wholesaler companies that will draft and sign engineering drawings for a roof-top permit application in most states. Some folks claim https://www.pegasussolar.com/ https://www.pegasussolar.com/ was inexpensive, and might be worth a call. The problem with Home Solar is the same as with Heat exchanger installs... some installers price gouge, and simply don't care about the quality of the work. Best of luck, if you plan to stay someplace 8+ years a 10kW Solar+battery install and heat exchanger are fine investments. We've also donated a few of those cheap FlexSolar 40W Foldable Solar panels + power-bank kits to people in remote areas, and they reported phone/VHF-Handy charging was reliable. =3
glenstein 1y ago
>voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] This is a disastrous misrepresentation of a complex case with lots of moving pieces. At no point in the history of the construction of that specific power line was there a challenge to legality of citizen initiative until after the vote. Meanwhile, as they were behind in the polls, the company rushed to build as much of it as they could knowing that the initiative was coming, so when they failed at the ballot box, they could claim a legally recognized "vested interest". Absent the vested interest claim they would have been legally bound by the results of the ballot initiative, and the vested interest was not established until after the ballot had been voted on.
manmal 1y ago
Here in Austria, grid costs are now on par with the actual electricity cost. Each are ca €0.1 per kWh now, plus again that in taxes. Once the EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Oh and what do they do with that money? Hoard it for upcoming grid updates, which they supposedly have to make to accommodate solar peaks and EV charging. And buy solar parks in Spain, apparently.
- CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
  >Once EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Why is it ridiculous? From a pure mathematical economics point of view it's genius I think. It means energy producers can just set their price at production price, knowing they will get the best deal that way and thus don't need to speculate on the electricity prices. It makes electricity as cheap as possible when it's abundant and expensive when it's not, also incentifying users of electricity to shift their consumption. What's a better way of doing it?
  - nandomrumber 1y ago
    Any way that is more fair for the end user. Why should a solar generator, who has virtually zero inputs, demand the same rate as a gas or coal generator who’s costs are dominated by inputs? Where’s the promised savings to the end user? That’s right, there aren’t any. And people bang on about solar being cheaper. No it isn’t. Solar electricity is the same price as gas peaker-plant electricity. Everywhere I’ve looked, same story. And there’s no solar power without gas.
    - pantalaimon 1y ago
      If you can make a great profit from solar, you are incentivised to build more of it for an even greater profit. Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
Rural electrification in the US hugely proves your point. Yes, grid costs are fantastically expensive!! At the time: we had no choice! Universal electricity access was (& is) vastly better than the alternative: not having universal access. But what's happening in this article isn't an alternative, not so far: it's leaving the masses behind, dropping the pretense that electricity is a utility that ought be available to society broadly. Perhaps the private rental systems here provide pretty good access. In general though, I think society really ought to accept pretty big inefficiencies/costs (if that's what it takes) if thats what it takes to provide these base demands widely. It feels horrific to consider only the costs here, to see the inefficiency, without regarding what electrification, transport, and other base utilities enable your people to do, how much it changes lives. Narrow, mercenary cost analysis is an awful way to run your society. For sure, I deeply hope solar maybe can reduce some of the grid maintenance costs, by decentralizing energy. Over time. But this article &b this comment broadly accept a cost-based analysis, that largely revolve around the failure of a public works, one that needs to be efficient but that also has to be more willing to lose some money, to operate no matter what in unprofitable places. States have to make utilities available, period, whatever combination of political & economic will/unprofitability is required. I'm excited for solar! The decentralized nature is amazing! But beyond the glory of possibility, it scares the heck out of me that society might just give up on a tie that binds us, might abandon the basic sense of utility that most states have been able to keep going for around a hundred years now. The success & market capture of the companies spotlighted here is both a success, but also an liability. Solar is plentiful but the middlemen here have enormous price control, that maybe they are not flexing on now, but over time is a capability I would far prefer states tap & use for public benefit, rather than comingling with private interest.
- don_esteban 1y ago
  This is not about rich society abandoning its people. (That's the US healthcare mess.) This is about advances in the technology allowing the people to take care of themselves in cases when the overall society is so poor that it can't provide the central electricity grid.
nextaccountic 1y ago
Permitting hassle? What do you need permits for?
- skywhopper 1y ago
  To build meaningful solar on your house/property would require permits most municipalities.
  - nextaccountic 1y ago
    But why? Does building roofs also require permits?
NedF 1y ago
[dead]
Brian_K_White 1y ago
Since once all the land is accounted for, there is no such thing as construction without destruction, I am glad that destruction is difficult.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
api 1y ago
In many places more of your electric bill pays for the grid than for the power.
Loughla 1y ago
>The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event. Having had three major transmission lines for energy (two electric one gas) come through the area I live in the last 8 years, this is just false. In the US it's not hard to get it done as long as you have mountains of cash and a state willing to imminent domain people.
mrguyorama 1y ago
> voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] The idea that a private company should get to unilaterally change our environment for profit is gross. I think it's funny you use this example when CMP has been utterly refusing to connect tens of solar power and community solar projects to our grid, which suffers from a lack of generation contributing to our staggeringly high electricity costs. Meanwhile, CMP insists that they have to double our rates (again), and don't really provide justification. This despite our generation and distribution costs being entirely separated, CMP having monopoly power over most of the state for distribution buildout, CMP having one of the least reliable grids in the nation despite supposedly spending enormously within the last few years to upgrade parts of the grid, and the whole time, CMP is extracting tidy profits to an entirely different country, from my fellow Mainers who are primarily old and on fixed incomes. Maybe, just maybe, you don't have an accurate understanding of this issue? We have several fully built solar farms, desperately needed new generation, just sitting idle as CMP refuses to connect them, because connecting more distributed infrastructure like that would eat into their profit margins, which continue to stay high as they continue to yearly increase our rates while sending out multiple leaflets telling people that they are totally not at fault for increasing their distribution rates because oh my generation costs also went up. You should look up how much CMP spent on playing ads about how they would totally respect our nature and it would be vaguely great for us to build a transmission line to another state, as they continue to refuse to hook up generation that could reduce our power prices, and not even their chunk of that price!
aidenn0 1y ago
Where I live in California permitting is such a pain in the ass that a lot of work goes unpermitted. Contractors have a CYA clause in all of their contracts (along the lines of "the owner is responsible for all permits"). Permits significantly increase the time for a job, with inspectors needing to show up to inspect things before something else can go on top, and things that seem reasonable causing complete reworks[1]. The fact that so few people pull permits means many workers aren't used to inspections, causing even further delays. 1: e.g. I saw an inspector not allow two 90deg. bend in RMC because, while the existing RMC went through a wall, and came out in a straight line on the other side, without knocking out the wall, we couldn't prove that there weren't already 3 90deg. bends. Maybe that's the right call (the electrician certainly thought it was asinine), maybe not, but things like that can significantly increase the time for project completion, since there are downstream effects to the scheduling.
- yankwire21 1y ago
  It certainly is asinine. The reason more than 180 degrees of bends is not allowed is because it becomes too hard to pull the wires through. If the inspector was there looking at finished work, the wires are already pulled.
teiferer 1y ago
> in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs If you really believe that then you need to read up on how the political system is financed. Members of congress spend a majority of their day calling "donors". That's not mom and dad, it's some corps (or rich individuals) who want to get sth done in return. And magically it gets done if the donations keep flowing. The only thing missing for "bribe" is to actually use the word.
bongodongobob 1y ago
Sorry, it's not. The only proof I need to show is 100 year old wooden power poles that are literally everywhere. I have no idea why this is so highly upvoted. I guess it takes some shit in the tech tree to get you there, but maintenance of the lines and infra is not expensive. You ate the bait.
veunes 1y ago
At least in some African countries, the centralized grid was never built out to begin with

whatever1 1y ago

Poor countries have different problems that don’t let decentralization to work. Local gangs go around and demand protection money and if you don’t pay up your solar panels will unfortunately suffer some “accidental” catastrophic damage.

datadrivenangel 1y ago
Apparently solar panels that have fake cracks are moderately popular in some parts of the world to deter theft and similar behavior.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  Counterfeit panels are also a huge problem https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/507496-knock-off-solar-panel-sellers-taking-south-africans-for-a-ride.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/507496-knock-off-solar...
skissane 1y ago
Poor countries have these problems, yes, but they don’t stop whatever, they just add some expense to it. In certain areas of Mexico, businesses have to pay taxes to the local cartel, but if you do, they’ll leave you alone-and they know that if they demand too much, that’s actually undermining their own self-interest. Effectively, the cartel is just another level of local government, taxing you like all the others do. An armed gang or warlord somewhere in Africa or Syria or Afghanistan very often functions similarly.
samdoesnothing 1y ago
Sounds like taxes and government to me and that hasn't (so far) stopped people from building. In fact many people here praise those gangs, and wish they were bigger and demand more money.

tick_tock_tick 1y ago

> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. How do they deal with the cost of storage for anything non trivial completely eclipsing any savings?

energy123 1y ago
Well it doesn't eclipse savings, you can still get about 12% annual ROI in developing countries with a battery. And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day.
- tick_tock_tick 1y ago
  > Well it doesn't eclipse savings I mean it's several hundred fold more expensive I'd call that "eclipse" but maybe you have a higher threshold for that word? > And many will make do without a battery, just relying on power during the day. I mean I guess that's an option if you don't want these places to advance in quality of life or produce much of anything.
  - energy123 1y ago
    It increases costs of a solar system to about 1.5-2.2x (so an extra 50-120%), not several hundred fold. The hybrid inverter is slightly more expensive than a normal inverter, then you add the 4-16 kWh battery which is pretty cheap nowadays.

mothballed 1y ago

Solar bribery is interestingly the exact opposite in some of the USA, where the solar contractors have basically gotten in bed with government for regulatory capture on the market. Most places in my state you need an electrician license, permits, bonding, insurance, a special 'solar' warranty, and inspections if you want solar. I built my house without any inspection or licensing and connected to the electric grid without anyone from the government ever even looking at it or taking money for it. If I wanted to add a solar system, it basically completely fucked everything and I would have had to gone through the normal permitting and inspection system for my house which would have made even building the house basically impossible for me.

datadrivenangel 1y ago
Where did you build a house without a permit and get away with it?
- mothballed 1y ago
  I have a permit. And the permit basically says I don't have to get it inspected, show building plans, or do anything but tip my hat to the government. Unless I add solar.
  - foobarian 1y ago
    I feel very optimistic about battery storage for this reason. I would love nothing more than be able to run on battery for a week or so so I can give a middle finger to the utility and just rip out the grid connection. No more solar inverter or power limit permits needed.
    - coffeebeqn 1y ago
      You probably still want an inverter to get AC for your household. I’m also still waiting for the house size batteries to come down in price before pulling the trigger apart from a small 200W setup for fun

w10-1 1y ago

> Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough.

badpun 1y ago
Some of the sacrifice is not voluntary - most panels contain parts and/or materials made by slaves in work camps.
- omnimus 1y ago
  Just like iPhones.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    I think it's a bit different, I never heard a story of iPhones being manufactured like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636 However most of the "slave" talk these days comes from highly politicized sources, so it's hard to cut through to the truth. For example, it's not likely that there's enough Uyghur slave labor to be involved with "most" of the polysilicon even from Xinjiang, much less the entire world's supply. IMHO, like the cobalt getting mined by children from artisanal-scale mines in Africa, it's a very serious issue that gets trotted out more as a political football against the entire technology, rather than expressed as an earnest concern to solve the underlying problem.
    - bdangubic 1y ago
      > I think it's a bit different nice to discuss the degrees of slavery, little slavery is cool, little more perhaps not as much…
      - vkou 1y ago

justapassenger 1y ago

> Decentralized solar plus batteries is already cheaper than electricity + transmission for me at my home in the US. The only thing stopping me is the permitting hassle or the contractor hassle. Does decentralized solar plus batteries give you same amount of reliability? How many days without sunny weather can you survive without having to change your energy use habits? Each 9 of reliability for infrastructure is EXTREMELY expensive. And grid has a lot of 9s.

roywiggins 1y ago
The grid has a lot of 9s, but in a lot of places losing power for a day or two after a storm is not unusual at all. The grid per se being fine but your actual neighborhood being dark for a couple days is a pretty common experience in some places.
- tekchip 1y ago
  Can confirm. I live in a US city and the only 9 involved is maybe the very first number. I've lived here just over a year and we've had 1 full day without power and probably 8 to 10 short outages between a few seconds and several 10s of minutes. I'm adding batteries and solar permitting be damned.
  - sethherr 1y ago
    Wild! I’ve lived in Chicago and San Francisco and have never lost power for more than an hour. And can’t remember the last time it went out at all, maybe 2 years ago? What city do you live in?
    - daemonologist 1y ago
      I'm (not GP) in the Chicago burbs and expect to lose power 1-3 times a year. Usually it's for less than twelve hours but last year it was out for three days straight. Most recent outage was ~10 minutes long a couple weeks ago - I still haven't set the oven clock. The cause around here is usually storm + trees + above ground power lines, plus a low enough population density that you're not top priority for the utility company.

honkostani 1y ago

[dead]

Joel_Mckay 1y ago

There are a few US Solar wholesaler companies that will draft and sign engineering drawings for a roof-top permit application in most states. Some folks claim https://www.pegasussolar.com/ https://www.pegasussolar.com/ was inexpensive, and might be worth a call. The problem with Home Solar is the same as with Heat exchanger installs... some installers price gouge, and simply don't care about the quality of the work. Best of luck, if you plan to stay someplace 8+ years a 10kW Solar+battery install and heat exchanger are fine investments. We've also donated a few of those cheap FlexSolar 40W Foldable Solar panels + power-bank kits to people in remote areas, and they reported phone/VHF-Handy charging was reliable. =3

glenstein 1y ago

>voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] This is a disastrous misrepresentation of a complex case with lots of moving pieces. At no point in the history of the construction of that specific power line was there a challenge to legality of citizen initiative until after the vote. Meanwhile, as they were behind in the polls, the company rushed to build as much of it as they could knowing that the initiative was coming, so when they failed at the ballot box, they could claim a legally recognized "vested interest". Absent the vested interest claim they would have been legally bound by the results of the ballot initiative, and the vested interest was not established until after the ballot had been voted on.

manmal 1y ago

Here in Austria, grid costs are now on par with the actual electricity cost. Each are ca €0.1 per kWh now, plus again that in taxes. Once the EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Oh and what do they do with that money? Hoard it for upcoming grid updates, which they supposedly have to make to accommodate solar peaks and EV charging. And buy solar parks in Spain, apparently.

CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
>Once EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Why is it ridiculous? From a pure mathematical economics point of view it's genius I think. It means energy producers can just set their price at production price, knowing they will get the best deal that way and thus don't need to speculate on the electricity prices. It makes electricity as cheap as possible when it's abundant and expensive when it's not, also incentifying users of electricity to shift their consumption. What's a better way of doing it?
- nandomrumber 1y ago
  Any way that is more fair for the end user. Why should a solar generator, who has virtually zero inputs, demand the same rate as a gas or coal generator who’s costs are dominated by inputs? Where’s the promised savings to the end user? That’s right, there aren’t any. And people bang on about solar being cheaper. No it isn’t. Solar electricity is the same price as gas peaker-plant electricity. Everywhere I’ve looked, same story. And there’s no solar power without gas.
  - pantalaimon 1y ago
    If you can make a great profit from solar, you are incentivised to build more of it for an even greater profit. Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

Rural electrification in the US hugely proves your point. Yes, grid costs are fantastically expensive!! At the time: we had no choice! Universal electricity access was (& is) vastly better than the alternative: not having universal access. But what's happening in this article isn't an alternative, not so far: it's leaving the masses behind, dropping the pretense that electricity is a utility that ought be available to society broadly. Perhaps the private rental systems here provide pretty good access. In general though, I think society really ought to accept pretty big inefficiencies/costs (if that's what it takes) if thats what it takes to provide these base demands widely. It feels horrific to consider only the costs here, to see the inefficiency, without regarding what electrification, transport, and other base utilities enable your people to do, how much it changes lives. Narrow, mercenary cost analysis is an awful way to run your society. For sure, I deeply hope solar maybe can reduce some of the grid maintenance costs, by decentralizing energy. Over time. But this article &b this comment broadly accept a cost-based analysis, that largely revolve around the failure of a public works, one that needs to be efficient but that also has to be more willing to lose some money, to operate no matter what in unprofitable places. States have to make utilities available, period, whatever combination of political & economic will/unprofitability is required. I'm excited for solar! The decentralized nature is amazing! But beyond the glory of possibility, it scares the heck out of me that society might just give up on a tie that binds us, might abandon the basic sense of utility that most states have been able to keep going for around a hundred years now. The success & market capture of the companies spotlighted here is both a success, but also an liability. Solar is plentiful but the middlemen here have enormous price control, that maybe they are not flexing on now, but over time is a capability I would far prefer states tap & use for public benefit, rather than comingling with private interest.

don_esteban 1y ago
This is not about rich society abandoning its people. (That's the US healthcare mess.) This is about advances in the technology allowing the people to take care of themselves in cases when the overall society is so poor that it can't provide the central electricity grid.

nextaccountic 1y ago

Permitting hassle? What do you need permits for?

skywhopper 1y ago
To build meaningful solar on your house/property would require permits most municipalities.
- nextaccountic 1y ago
  But why? Does building roofs also require permits?

NedF 1y ago

[dead]

Brian_K_White 1y ago

Since once all the land is accounted for, there is no such thing as construction without destruction, I am glad that destruction is difficult.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

api 1y ago

In many places more of your electric bill pays for the grid than for the power.

Loughla 1y ago

>The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event. Having had three major transmission lines for energy (two electric one gas) come through the area I live in the last 8 years, this is just false. In the US it's not hard to get it done as long as you have mountains of cash and a state willing to imminent domain people.

mrguyorama 1y ago

> voter ballot propositions illegally blocking a transmission line for years [1] The idea that a private company should get to unilaterally change our environment for profit is gross. I think it's funny you use this example when CMP has been utterly refusing to connect tens of solar power and community solar projects to our grid, which suffers from a lack of generation contributing to our staggeringly high electricity costs. Meanwhile, CMP insists that they have to double our rates (again), and don't really provide justification. This despite our generation and distribution costs being entirely separated, CMP having monopoly power over most of the state for distribution buildout, CMP having one of the least reliable grids in the nation despite supposedly spending enormously within the last few years to upgrade parts of the grid, and the whole time, CMP is extracting tidy profits to an entirely different country, from my fellow Mainers who are primarily old and on fixed incomes. Maybe, just maybe, you don't have an accurate understanding of this issue? We have several fully built solar farms, desperately needed new generation, just sitting idle as CMP refuses to connect them, because connecting more distributed infrastructure like that would eat into their profit margins, which continue to stay high as they continue to yearly increase our rates while sending out multiple leaflets telling people that they are totally not at fault for increasing their distribution rates because oh my generation costs also went up. You should look up how much CMP spent on playing ads about how they would totally respect our nature and it would be vaguely great for us to build a transmission line to another state, as they continue to refuse to hook up generation that could reduce our power prices, and not even their chunk of that price!

aidenn0 1y ago

Where I live in California permitting is such a pain in the ass that a lot of work goes unpermitted. Contractors have a CYA clause in all of their contracts (along the lines of "the owner is responsible for all permits"). Permits significantly increase the time for a job, with inspectors needing to show up to inspect things before something else can go on top, and things that seem reasonable causing complete reworks[1]. The fact that so few people pull permits means many workers aren't used to inspections, causing even further delays. 1: e.g. I saw an inspector not allow two 90deg. bend in RMC because, while the existing RMC went through a wall, and came out in a straight line on the other side, without knocking out the wall, we couldn't prove that there weren't already 3 90deg. bends. Maybe that's the right call (the electrician certainly thought it was asinine), maybe not, but things like that can significantly increase the time for project completion, since there are downstream effects to the scheduling.

yankwire21 1y ago
It certainly is asinine. The reason more than 180 degrees of bends is not allowed is because it becomes too hard to pull the wires through. If the inspector was there looking at finished work, the wires are already pulled.

teiferer 1y ago

> in the US you just need to bribe landowners and hold-outs If you really believe that then you need to read up on how the political system is financed. Members of congress spend a majority of their day calling "donors". That's not mom and dad, it's some corps (or rich individuals) who want to get sth done in return. And magically it gets done if the donations keep flowing. The only thing missing for "bribe" is to actually use the word.

bongodongobob 1y ago

Sorry, it's not. The only proof I need to show is 100 year old wooden power poles that are literally everywhere. I have no idea why this is so highly upvoted. I guess it takes some shit in the tech tree to get you there, but maintenance of the lines and infra is not expensive. You ate the bait.

veunes 1y ago

At least in some African countries, the centralized grid was never built out to begin with