alt Hacker News> it was a genuine win/win even before getting into softer factors like reducing usage of fossil fuel peaker plants that a lot of us do really care about. In an ideal world neutralizing that carbon pollution would all just be built into pricing so the market could better sort it out, but as it stands I don't feel bad about supporting a shift to some extent too.
We should be doing this as a society (or as a state or as a utility company) instead of relying on individual do-gooders to pay for it. 70-80% of the cost sounds very good, but if you're not getting any latitude on how the things are used, that 20-30% is still unfair. If they belong to the utility, the utility makes all decisions regarding it, and you are giving up your space for it, if anything you should be getting paid, not paying.
They could at least let you actively decide if you want to allow it to be drawn down and to what extent; some sort of latitude. As it is, for them it's money for nothing.
That being said, the article says that they're starting to install them for free. Thanks for sharing your experience.
>We should be doing this as a society (or as a state or as a utility company) instead of relying on individual do-gooders to pay for it.
Sure, but we aren't yet, at least not remotely to the extent required. And we all individually have benefited from the externalized pollution that fossil fuels have been responsible for, this isn't just some nebulous other thing right? It's not unreasonable imo that yeah, we individually should try to pay for that damage we ourselves "profited" from, even while simultaneously trying to vote and organize towards broader solutions. But feeding money into getting off fossil fuel is both directly personally helpful and broadly helpful.
>70-80% of the cost sounds very good, but if you're not getting any latitude on how the things are used, that 20-30% is still unfair. If they belong to the utility, the utility makes all decisions regarding it, and you are giving up your space for it, if anything you should be getting paid, not paying.
I don't agree with you, and it's my money, my buildings and my call to make. I've gotten a plenty solid direct benefit in ROI over the last 8-9 years for the $3k it cost me one time only vs the $15k a couple of PowerWall 2s would have been upfront and then the rate shifting and minimal solar I was in a position for at the time, or alternatively the cost of a new generator and then all the fuel and ongoing maintenance required. The $12k in savings thanks to the utility is money I could put into other investments that have had their own ROI since then. I do think the math now for me and a lot of others is different in 2026 then 2017, there are lots and lots of competitive battery and solar and inverter solutions now at radically reduced prices and that seems to just be accelerating, with sodium based systems and other tech coming. But that wouldn't have offset a real chunk of 9 years of carbon equiv release by me. The batteries got far more usage as part of a system for society then just me, and I still did ok even if it didn't perfectly maximize the individual dollar savings.
>They could at least let you actively decide if you want to allow it to be drawn down and to what extent; some sort of latitude. As it is, for them it's money for nothing.
If you BYOB you do get that choice, though obviously if you let them take less they pay less. But it's not money for nothing, just a weighing of risk/benefit.
>That being said, the article says that they're starting to install them for free.
The battery cost per kWh has fallen enough and I think they've gotten comfortable enough with the landscape shift that I can see that making sense now, not early adopter territory anymore. The utility is also in a position to realize benefits like having a bit more leeway in how they dispatch linemen for repairs, if they know someone is covered for 20 hours and it's currently 15 below zero with whiteout conditions that'll clear in 2 hours maybe it's worth something to be able to not have that be an emergency (or instead to direct emergency efforts to someone else who isn't covered).
>Thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm glad it's come up on HN. It's one of the few real rays of hope I find in all this, that despite failure of collective action it's just getting so good that the economics and politics are tilting anyway. Won't be fast enough to avoid a lot of bad effects, but it can always get worse so the faster the better.