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The fact that you need a large area is largely (!) irrelevant, what matters is the cost per energy unit. Except possibly in Seattle, most American single-family
by lutorm 12y ago
The fact that you need a large area is largely (!) irrelevant, what matters is the cost per energy unit. Except possibly in Seattle, most American single-family houses have enough roof area to generate their annual electricity usage, including that for a hypothetical EV, using current PV panels. Add area used for parking, and you have more potential in densely populated areas. Storage is still an issue, though.
- crdoconnor 12y ago>Storage is still an issue, though. A bigger issue that storage is the utilities' desire to make it difficult and uneconomic to hook up panels to the grid. They make the greatest profits during the times when electricity usage peaks - coincidentally which is when solar panels are at their most productive (midday; especially during summertime).
- lutorm 12y agoI'm not sure that's a bigger issue, though it's definitely an issue. However, my understanding is that utilities are happy with PV offsetting peak load, because in those situations they either have to buy power from someone else or fire up expensive peaker plants, and in the vast majority of markets they can't charge their customers for it because most customers don't have a time-of-use tariff.