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You can decentralize residential power without doing the same for industrial loads. Doing so is a mixed bag. It's somewhat more expensive however it's less pron

You can decentralize residential power without doing the same for industrial loads. Doing so is a mixed bag. It's somewhat more expensive however it's less prone to failures during natural disasters, failures aren't outside of your ability to fix, and it isn't subject to politics to nearly the same degree. When you consider the logistics of strengthening the last mile of residential to accommodate EVs in a sparsely populated place like the US (or rather the apparent lack of political will to do so) it starts to look extremely attractive.

mbgerring 7mo ago
A good friend of mine is a solar installer in rural California, and he is booked solid building battery and solar systems sized to charge cars, because depending on PG&E is worse than spending the money to go off-grid.
- lpcvoid 7mo ago
  Yepp. Grid defection is a trend all across the world right now in sunny climates. I live in Germany and can unfortunately not do this, but if I had thr sun hours of California, you can bet I'd build 300kWh of LiFePO4 and as much solar as my roof allows, and cancel all my expensive contracts.
JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> You can decentralize residential power without doing the same for industrial loads. Doing so is a mixed bag There is a middle ground: decentralize enough to run essential services. Run the rest through the grid. The big downside to decentralising residential power is that's variable demand–precisely the sort of demand you can net out against other parts of the grid. The sort of variance that makes grids more economic than everyone powering themselves. (Again, in rural settings, yes–decentralise.)
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  > The big downside to decentralising residential power is that's variable demand–precisely the sort of demand you can net out against other parts of the grid. Residential is variable but for the most part not all that amenable to time shifting, at least at present. Isn't a grid most efficient with a constant load, with the next best being something that varies only slowly over time and is highly predictable? Then there's EVs. I'm under the impression that replacing a notable fraction of the ICE cars on the road with EVs would at present place the grid over capacity most places in the US. When it comes to unit cost doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook? I don't see why residential considerations should make much (or even any) difference to dense commercial or extremely high capacity industrial users. Given that solar plus battery is reasonably affordable for a large chunk of the US population it doesn't really seem like much of a downside when framed as a voluntary expense. I still see people building it out where I'm at (suburbs) despite (AFAIK) the subsidies ending.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > not all that amenable to time shifting That’s fine. A solar system specced to a house has to meet its max drawdown. A house connected to a grid can effectively pawn off its unused power to another user. That’s the efficiency of a grid. > doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook? Yes. The NPV of a blended system (solar, maybe battery and grid) almost always beats going all in on one or the other. You spec to your base load and put the uncertainty on the grid. That way you don’t have to overprovision solar and battery. (And you’re good with your essentials if the power goes out.) This is almost universally true unless you have super-subsidized solar (bonus points for an expensive grid, e.g. California) or stupidly-cheap and reliable grid power (until recently, the Gulf).

mbgerring 7mo ago

A good friend of mine is a solar installer in rural California, and he is booked solid building battery and solar systems sized to charge cars, because depending on PG&E is worse than spending the money to go off-grid.

lpcvoid 7mo ago
Yepp. Grid defection is a trend all across the world right now in sunny climates. I live in Germany and can unfortunately not do this, but if I had thr sun hours of California, you can bet I'd build 300kWh of LiFePO4 and as much solar as my roof allows, and cancel all my expensive contracts.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> You can decentralize residential power without doing the same for industrial loads. Doing so is a mixed bag There is a middle ground: decentralize enough to run essential services. Run the rest through the grid. The big downside to decentralising residential power is that's variable demand–precisely the sort of demand you can net out against other parts of the grid. The sort of variance that makes grids more economic than everyone powering themselves. (Again, in rural settings, yes–decentralise.)

fc417fc802 7mo ago
> The big downside to decentralising residential power is that's variable demand–precisely the sort of demand you can net out against other parts of the grid. Residential is variable but for the most part not all that amenable to time shifting, at least at present. Isn't a grid most efficient with a constant load, with the next best being something that varies only slowly over time and is highly predictable? Then there's EVs. I'm under the impression that replacing a notable fraction of the ICE cars on the road with EVs would at present place the grid over capacity most places in the US. When it comes to unit cost doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook? I don't see why residential considerations should make much (or even any) difference to dense commercial or extremely high capacity industrial users. Given that solar plus battery is reasonably affordable for a large chunk of the US population it doesn't really seem like much of a downside when framed as a voluntary expense. I still see people building it out where I'm at (suburbs) despite (AFAIK) the subsidies ending.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > not all that amenable to time shifting That’s fine. A solar system specced to a house has to meet its max drawdown. A house connected to a grid can effectively pawn off its unused power to another user. That’s the efficiency of a grid. > doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook? Yes. The NPV of a blended system (solar, maybe battery and grid) almost always beats going all in on one or the other. You spec to your base load and put the uncertainty on the grid. That way you don’t have to overprovision solar and battery. (And you’re good with your essentials if the power goes out.) This is almost universally true unless you have super-subsidized solar (bonus points for an expensive grid, e.g. California) or stupidly-cheap and reliable grid power (until recently, the Gulf).