alt Hacker NewsHome installations just cut it off. In both of these cases.
I did my own battery backed installation. When I'm underproducing I can shed load (I turn off my AC - almost always that's enough, and it's automated by relay). When I'm overproducing (ex - my battery is full and my load is still not enough to consume input) I just don't let the panels generate more current than I can consume.
Managing grid scale power is different concern, and not particularly relevant to small household generation. Especially not relevant in the 800W category for "balcony solar" (which is much smaller than what I'm working with).
Solar is fucking coming, whether you continue to shove head into the ground or not.
It's just way more affordable. Getting easily more affordable as batteries continue to improve.
I honestly doubt I'll still be connected to a local utility grid for electric 10 years from now, and I live in a region of the US that has considerably cheaper grid power than most areas.
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The dilemma here for me is twofold:
(1) while it makes sense to me to distribute generation, because there are not really any significant economies of scale other than purchasing power, it doesn't make sense to distribute storage which, IIUC, has huge economies of scale.
(2) being fully off-grid where I live requires homes that can be heated in winter with heat pumps that require less than mid-winter generation levels. That means, in general, much better construction techniques than most current houses have. At our house, we generate 2x of our needs in the non-heating season, and 0.5x of our need in the heating season - covering that demand with a battery would be ridiculous.
My current EV has a 38kW battery.
When it's too worn out for car use (SoH around 60-70%), it's still perfectly enough to run _everything_ in my house for multiple days - except for the electric sauna, and I'm smart enough to turn it on if there are production issues :D
There's a reason why EV's will never be as cheap as the cheapest ICE shitbox. Just the bare metals in the battery are worth thousands when recycled, even more if the battery is still viable.