RegGuheert
Well-known member
You're right, I am. I am also conflating two different things:GetOffYourGas said:Maybe I'm missing something, butit seems to me that you are talking out of both sides of your mouth here.
- Where I live, there is currently no backlash against net metering because there are very few subscribers who net meter. Also where I live (and where you live) one would need to greatly oversize (~5X normal size) one's PV array in order to meet all of one's needs in the dead of winter, even with a large battery bank. (So dropping fully off the grid with a battery bank is not nearly as trivial. Nine months of the year, no problem. The other three months are much more difficult without burning something to stay warm.)
- Elsewhere in areas where the climate is not as cold and there is a much higher market penetration of PV, the utilities ARE starting to penalize their net-metering customers AND these same customers have a much better chance of disconnecting from the grid (or at least shifting their production and/or generation to compensate for the utilities' new policies. (So expect defections from the grid as the utilities change their policies.)
Sure, but how much is that? And in the future, that will be much easier to bear since the PV will be much cheaper than the break-even that it was four years ago when I bought or the 50% grid price that it is today.GetOffYourGas said:Long-term, we (the net-metered PV population in general) should be willing and able to pay the proper amount for the maintanence of our "battery".
This is where things get tricky. Does it make sense to have people in our climate install mulitple times the amount of PV that they need to cover their annual consumption and then pull that off the grid and operate from batteries only? IMO, that is an extremely wasteful approach, particularly at a time when PV penetration rates are low and that actual production could instead directly prevent the equivalent amount of production from coal. Simply put, standalone battery-based systems are extremely inefficient. So until the time that my PV generation starts to impact others, either in their bills or in the behavior of the grid, net metering is a decent compromise overall. It certainly is the most straightforward approach at this time.GetOffYourGas said:Or invest in your own personal battery if you prefer.