Are there any write ups of people who supply all their energy needs (including transportation) via solar?

[x98myers7]

Yeah, someone really needs to twist everyone's arm to agree to a standardized house-to-grid (which i guess would include vehicle to grid) protocol so we can all sign mini lease agreements on our storage like 'for $/mo you can have 30% of my total capacity during these time windows' so that manufacturers can start building things that will use the protocol and utilities can instantly assess the 'reserve generation capacity' of the grid that is stored in home/vehicle batteries. Without standardization there's no good way for the grid to incorporate small producers. It becomes less onerous just to refuse to integrate them, and that's where things look like they're currently heading. Right now there's still a lot of 'ill buy from you low and sell to you high' still out there which is a nice way of saying go away without outright refusing to play ball, but it's going to become outright refusal shortly enough unless standards are established. The 'winners' will still be whoever has the most influence in local government bodies, but when governments effectively ban home solar/batteries in grid-connected homes, we will be past the point of bemoaning how little they were paying us for our production.

no thanks. it's confusing enough of a model as it is. making it more complicated is not the answer. less regulation is the answer; it always has been.

 

[Ampster]

Storage is still the issue

I agree and it was really not available as a cost effective technology except for what reservoirs have been doing for decades. Now that cost effective solar energy has entered the market storage has become the bridge between the intermittancy of solar and the demand for power.

It is all about timing. I am comforted that at least some in the private sector are making the investment in solar. I see more and more solar farms being constructed with some storage. They have realized that storage opens a larger window of time in which their generation can be sold. Also there was some financial risk out west when solar farms were being asked to curtail their output and storage allows them to divert that output to storage to sell into the market at a more favorable time.

 

[Vigo]

less regulation is the answer; it always has been.

The problem i see with that is that it assumes only the industry will be regulated, when in all likelihood it's the individuals who will be. Large organizations will always have more effective input in 'democracy' than thousands or even millions of un-organized individuals, which means that if nothing precludes them from doing so, large grid operators will just have laws/code changed to protect them from homeowners having 'excessive freedom', such as the freedom to not be a customer. This is already mostly true in a lot of places where you basically can't get permits for this or that without having a grid connection, which means if you don't get a grid connection you kinda can't legally get anything else, which means if the utility doesn't like you you are de facto outcast from polite society.

It has been this way forever with cars. If you look at how much the emissions of cars have been reduced as a percentage, vs the amount they have been reduced by grid operators, it is out of all proportion. The reason is that even though everyone buys cars, not everyone will show up when it counts and put their collective weight onto their government representatives. Meanwhile, big players will pay one guy, or a handful of guys, to show up every damn time and even when it's not time, play exactly by the rules they get paid to know, and make things happen in that government body. They will develop backdoor access that does not formally exist. They will violate the law in only the unprovable ways, to exert influence. There will be a public comment period during which noone comments because noone realizes anything is happening, and costs will be pushed onto whoever didn't fight back. So we're all driving around with thousands and thousands of dollars of emissions equipment on our cars putting out 0.5% of what they did 50 years ago and still being guilt tripped for global warming while a newer coal plant is.. uhh.. "much" cleaner than an old one. Yes, much. Oh and turns out i have to keep this antique POS coal plant running for an extra 2 decades because.. uhh because trust me and by the way do you really want to call my bluff? Hmm? Grid operators are state-sanctioned monopolies in the best of times and they can and will get worse.

The same thing will happen with solar. It will be held to standards that drive up its cost and unfairly hold it to a higher standard of safety and greenness than actual grid production, while the grid producers continue to catch state-sized forests on fire and leave people without power for weeks while talking about 'acts of god'. LOL

 

[Michaells]

The utilities are in it to make money, and they are trying to maximize that. There are reasonable arguments that say managing the unpredictable ebbs and flows of all us small guys feeding the grid makes it harder, and that the grid is expensive to maintain to begin with. You ask me, it should be part of the package of public services like schools, first responders, and garbage collection. But it's not, and our economy is going the way of privatization in all respects. Public education is suffering, our transportation infrastructure is suffering, and so is the grid that serves our electrical needs. I agree that it is time to start taking care of ourselves, not because I think that's the best way to handle it for society at large, but because if we don't do it we will be screwed.