alt Hacker NewsDistributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future.
Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs.
And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces.
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I'm every day more convinced that the only reasonable future of energy production is distributed solar and storage with microgrids at the neighbourhood level or so.
Anything bigger in scale is prone to being shittified to the limit by public entities.
Wild that you're getting downvoted for saying something so obvious. Weird.
> And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces.
When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, most probably wind farms, which could be producing energy instead. So you pay actually twice. When the solar underproduces, you need to bring in alternative sources, but those now have to cover all their fixed costs and generate return on investment over this limited timeframe, which means the actual backup prices hit stratospheric levels.
What's the actual cost of solar with actual net-billing?
Rooftop solar is incredibly popular here in Australia. I think it’s something like 33% of houses have it. We also have a great climate for it.
I have solar on my house and am seeing around 50% self sufficiency overall. Of course with this much saturation, the rate you get paid for feeding back to the grid is quickly dropping to zero. So self use is the game now.
The problem is now shifting to home batteries and storage. Because peak power household use times are in the evening when the sun is not shining.