4 ms·

Why not both? One works better for people not living in cities, and the other one better for high-density areas.

ApolloFortyNine 10mo ago
>One works better for people not living in cities It's not as if homes outside of cities have their own diesel generators to power their house. (Since I'm guessing from this line of comments you'll point out the less than 1% of people who actually do do this, maybe it's better to focus only the 99% here).
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  > It's not as if homes outside of cities have their own diesel generators to power their house. Yeah, no true, I don't understand the point/argument though? More people relying on renewables == long term better for everyone on the planet That includes moving people outside of cities to renewables energy sources, is your point that this isn't so important because they're a small piece of the population usually?
coryrc 10mo ago
Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. In case you weren't familiar, Canada has a lot of other things which need the money than paying 5x per watt to subsidize panels on your roof instead of on the ground.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  > Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. Right, but as always, ROI is hardly the most important thing in life, there is more considerations than just "makes more money". For example, as someone affected by a day long country-wide electricity outage where essentially the entire country was without electricity and internet for ~14 hours or something, decentralizing energy across the country seems much more important, than optimizing for the highest ROI. But again, this is highly contextual and depends, I'm not as sure as you that there are absolute answers to these things.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    Grid-scale solar installations can be much more decentralized than nuclear or natural gas power plants. Decentralizing through subsidies at the homeowner level is maybe not the best use of money.
    - natmaka 10mo ago
      > Decentralizing through subsidies Consider the lower production cost of renewable electricity: in the long run, it offsets the investment. Bonus: no risk of accidents, no hazardous waste, no dependence on a fuel source, no weapons proliferation...
      - triceratops 10mo ago
        I didn't say subsidize nuclear. I said subsidize grid-scale solar before rooftop solar.
        natmaka 10mo ago
        Indeed, sorry. Decentralizing solar power reduces electricity transmission costs and improves reliability. This doesn't offset the additional cost, but it's not negligible.
        coryrc 10mo ago
        If the grid gets heavily overloaded, the frequency and voltage drop. And home-based grid-tie solar will shut itself off when it's most needed. This is fragile and DEcreases reliability.
        natmaka 10mo ago
        Storage, such as batteries coupled with V2G and also green-hydrogen fed turbo-alternators, can alleviate this.
  - 10mo ago

>One works better for people not living in cities It's not as if homes outside of cities have their own diesel generators to power their house. (Since I'm guessing from this line of comments you'll point out the less than 1% of people who actually do do this, maybe it's better to focus only the 99% here).

embedding-shape 10mo ago
> It's not as if homes outside of cities have their own diesel generators to power their house. Yeah, no true, I don't understand the point/argument though? More people relying on renewables == long term better for everyone on the planet That includes moving people outside of cities to renewables energy sources, is your point that this isn't so important because they're a small piece of the population usually?

coryrc 10mo ago

Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. In case you weren't familiar, Canada has a lot of other things which need the money than paying 5x per watt to subsidize panels on your roof instead of on the ground.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
> Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. Right, but as always, ROI is hardly the most important thing in life, there is more considerations than just "makes more money". For example, as someone affected by a day long country-wide electricity outage where essentially the entire country was without electricity and internet for ~14 hours or something, decentralizing energy across the country seems much more important, than optimizing for the highest ROI. But again, this is highly contextual and depends, I'm not as sure as you that there are absolute answers to these things.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  Grid-scale solar installations can be much more decentralized than nuclear or natural gas power plants. Decentralizing through subsidies at the homeowner level is maybe not the best use of money.
  - natmaka 10mo ago
    > Decentralizing through subsidies Consider the lower production cost of renewable electricity: in the long run, it offsets the investment. Bonus: no risk of accidents, no hazardous waste, no dependence on a fuel source, no weapons proliferation...
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      I didn't say subsidize nuclear. I said subsidize grid-scale solar before rooftop solar.
      - natmaka 10mo ago
        Indeed, sorry. Decentralizing solar power reduces electricity transmission costs and improves reliability. This doesn't offset the additional cost, but it's not negligible.
        coryrc 10mo ago
        If the grid gets heavily overloaded, the frequency and voltage drop. And home-based grid-tie solar will shut itself off when it's most needed. This is fragile and DEcreases reliability.
        natmaka 10mo ago
        Storage, such as batteries coupled with V2G and also green-hydrogen fed turbo-alternators, can alleviate this.
- 10mo ago