alt Hacker NewsAustralia is now ready for vertical solar, add a few more hours of production in the morning and evening. Panels are dirt cheap anyway, use them as fences, put them on high rise buildings. Change the building to require structural elements to hold the panels and build new homes with vertical + rooftop. The electric code should be updated to allow v2g.
With BESS (home, grid) and EVs (always plugged in, parked 95% of the time), there may be enough storage to start replacing baseload. This will take decades, but can be done. We gotta start somewhere.
Replies
Given the durability of panels, it'd be fascinating to see roof redesigns, and some changes in panel packaging, that standard large rectangles become the basic components of a 30 year roof. Or as siding. I've seen them used vertically on the Southern walls of commercial buildings in Alaska, and they looked great.
It requires large solar overcapacity to compensate for seasonal intermittency. Dedicated seasonal energy storage might be better economically.
I found the challenge with our own was just matching the peak of the panels to the peak voltage accepted by our inverter (including a safe margin for cold+snowy days where peak voltage is the highest), otherwise I totally would’ve loved to overpanel like crazy. George Costanza voice, I would drape my house in panels, if it were socially acceptable.