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posted by martyb on Saturday July 01 2017, @08:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the cutting-the-other-cord dept.

At least 1 million homes in the USA have solar systems on their rooftops and their use — together with local batteries — is increasing, enabling homeowners the ability to collect energy and store it for later usage on-site. This enables homeowners to cut their dependence on the electrical grid — and their bills. This could be economically painful for utilities. A new McKinsey study predicts two outcomes 1) electrical grid cut off completely 2) primarily local energy collection with the electrical grid as a backup.

The cost of collecting solar energy and storing it on-site makes the incentive too small even for residents of sunny Arizona to cut the electrical grid off. But partial defection from the grid with 80-90% of the demand supplied on-site makes economic sense in 2020 and total defection makes sense around 2028

The prediction by McKinsey is that the electrical grid will be repurposed as an enormous, sophisticated backup. One, where utilities only add energy at those times when the on-site systems aren't collecting enough energy.

My comment: So far good enough. But then why not simple connect to neighbors directly for electrical power transfer and cutting the utilities out of the loop even for electrical fallback needs? A electrical power mesh grid might need some interesting mathematical modeling though.

(As a side note, maybe this will soon make UPS for home use obsolete?)


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  • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday July 02 2017, @03:38AM

    by deimtee (3272) on Sunday July 02 2017, @03:38AM (#534070) Journal

    I don't think it is a dramatic change. Home storage needs to be cheap, reliable and maintenance-free, but most people don't care about size and weight (within reason). Do you really care whether that block attached to the back or side of your house occupies 2 or 4 cubic metres, and whether it weighs one or four tonnes? I don't. I do care about how much it costs and how long it lasts and how safe it is.
    Lithium is the wrong tech for stationary storage.

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