this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Don't really know the specific ins and outs of different policys and all that, but really want solar to become more main stream, and with that, hopefully bring the prices down a bit.
Very keen to get some solar in the near future, and would love for some friendlier prices :)
The one to watch is the buyback rate, or what the power company will buy power off you for. Unless you're using a lot of power during the day, this is typically what makes solar not worthwhile.
The real problem is the daily charge. If the buyback is close enough to the purchase price you can make your night time (off peak) costs balance your generated income. When you have a high daily rate you have make up that difference before you can break even. I just switched to a provider with a bigger buyback/purchase difference but lower daily and will come out ahead because of that. Got tired of sending 2x more kWh to the grid than receiving and still ending up in debit.
Does the math, math if you get enough Batteries so that you can use a lot of it at night, without much buyback? Or does the high cost of storage not make the math quite math.
I'm currently paying 10c/kwh off peak, and most of our power is used off peak, I doubt a battery would pay for itself any time soon. Besides, they're not the most environmentally friendly option.
Just totally random, but I suddenly thought of when they first introduced hybrid power into F1, and kept it quite open for the manufacturers to come up with their own solution, and at least one team (from memory) tested flywheels.
Wondered if someones done a residential scale flywheel, and it seems like there's been at least some research into it.
Those systems more or less completely charged and discharged in each corner from memory, there wasn't all that much energy in the system.
The only realistic use case I can think of would be keeping power on long enough for a generator to spin up. Otherwise you'd have a moving part with a scary amount of inertia that needs routine maintenance, and otherwise just sits there.
True. Does sound like a lot of maintenance and dangerr
Hopefully if they mandate for it. They will invest in solar and that should bring the price down for all. Only time will tell though
Hopefully with the massive amount of effort going into battery tech, the price continues to come down rapidly, and we also get new technologies coming out that are a bit more eco-friendly
Nah, grid scale pumped storage is where it's at. Much cleaner.
Genuinely curious - but what about for "self reliance" / redundancy options on a residential scale?
That's definitely an advantage to having your own storage, how much that's worth very much depends on the individual customer though.