Comment by swingandamiss

5 hours ago

Maybe, but ideas like that are what you all will use to eventually turn against solar and seek to ban going off grid as you see a disparity between those who can afford to buy solar and those who can't. Why's that a problem? Those who can will go off grid and those who can't will be left on a grid that they can't pay for, and it will crumble. We are already seeing the beginnings of this in California.

4 comments

swingandamiss

defrost 4 hours ago

Off grid? That's one way to go.

  Australia is leading the world in rooftop solar adoption. By June 2025, 4.2 million rooftop solar systems had been installed nationwide  representing 26.8 gigawatts of clean power generation capacity connected directly to local electricity networks that serve homes and businesses.

   “In the evenings homes typically consume power, which flows from large power generation plants, such as wind farms, hydroelectric, coal and gas-fired power plants. Let’s call this the ‘low-tide’ time in local electricity grid operation,” he said.

  “In the middle of a sunny day, however, today about 40% of Australian homes generate their own power from rooftop solar panels. When the rooftop solar generation exceeds the power consumption in the houses, the excess power is ‘exported’, flowing back to the grid, supplying other homes and beyond. Let’s call this the ‘high-tide’ time in local electricity grid operation.”

~ https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2025/october/ocean...

Grids are useful to balance out sources and sinks, make battery farms economical at scale. You do need smarter grids to deal with phase imbalances.

multjoy 4 hours ago

Have you seen the price of solar?

swingandamiss 4 hours ago
Yup, it's dropping dropping dropping. But it's still out of range for most.
- fragmede 1 hour ago
  
  Housing is out of range for most, but hopefully regulations will change to allow for balcony solar, which means that renters would be able to buy a tiny bit to offset their costs, and move it to their next place.