This is something I've been curious/interested in for a long time, so its good to see that somewhere out there (random Pacific islands aside), there's communities making it work.
Some rough numbers I did a month or two ago - Tesla offers a megapack that has 3.9 MWh at a cost of $2.4m. "In 2021, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. home was 10,632 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Or about 886 kWh per month." That's about 30 kWh per day; my community has 45 houses, so use of 1.35 MWh in total, so a megapack will provide power for 3 days for the community at a cost of ~50k per house. Probably not worth it and I'd expect 3 days to be overkill. But a community that was double our size will have a cost of about 25k per unit for 1.5 days of power - which doesn't sound too bad to me.
Another thing I've found interesting is Anker seems to be getting into the home power business - https://www.anker.com/anker-solix/home-energy-solutions?ref=... - which I'm hopeful about, since it doesn't seem like anyone except Tesla has been able to make something that feels simple/easy/attractive. Every time I've look at Powerwall alternatives I'm been unimpressed by the offerings; maybe Anker can deliver.
I recently installed an Enphase home backup system as a DIY project (crazy, I know). The biggest problem with any home-backup system is moving the loads onto their own sub-panel. When the utility goes down, power needs to flow into the home, but not to the rest of the neighborhood. To do this, a switch needs to physically disconnect the utility meter from the main loads panel. If this isn't possible (such as when the meter is integrated into the panel), all the loads need to move to a sub-panel. This is the hard part.
Once the meter and main panel are separate, the various backup solutions become pretty similar. The disconnect switch installs between the two, with the solar and battery attached. Sometimes the disconnect switch + solar + battery are all in one unit (like the Bluetti EP900), while sometimes the solar inverter, battery, and switch are all separate units (like Tesla or Enphase). The Tesla switch and battery are sleek & glossy, but the inverters are ugly. The Enphase stuff isn't quite as shiny, but at least the boxes look consistent.
Performance-wise, the systems seem pretty similar as well. Most systems are around $10K for 10KWh of capacity, with somewhere around 6-9 KW of peak discharge rate. I imagine these prices will drop a lot over the next decades. If the battery becomes obsolete, just install a different system. Once the home is correctly wired, swapping the storage system should be pretty straightforward.
You don't move the loads to the sub panel. You make a new main panel, move the feed to that, and turn the old main panel into a sub panel. Much easier.
You don’t need an isolation switch if you use a sol ark 15k or EG4 18k, you can just tie the grid straight in and they have isolation built in if the grid goes down.
I never stop to be amazed how average consumption figures in the US are often at least 100 per cent bigger than in Europe. At least for water and electricity, let alone fuel.
Just a thought that naturally pops up... :
If you take the reasoning one step back, wouldn't it be easier to optimize the consumption side (low hanging fruit) in favour if optimizing the cost per unit of energy? The latter seems a lot of effort, at least for the devs.
I believe that US households on average get a higher percent of their energy from electricity than do European households. For a proper comparison we need to compare energy use, not electricity use.
The average US household used 77 million BTU of energy in 2015 [1]. That's 1.94 TOE (tons of oil equivalent).
The EU average in 2014 was 1.3 TOE. It ranged from a little under 0.5 (Malta) to around 2.7 (Luxembourg) [2]. UK and Germany were around 1.4, France around 1.7, Italy around 1.9. Belgium was just under 2.
I would imagine in the southern states where it's 40 degrees C+ every day for 3 months-4 months or more on end the heatpump (aka reverse cycle a/c) is basically kept on constantly. Let's say it draws 1kw on average, that's 24kwh right there. They actually draw more than that. There's no way around it if you want to live comfortably. But I think the whole society is designed so much around driving everywhere and living in detached houses that the low hanging fruit is actually to install solar/batteries for these guys.
its pretty easy to understand when you spend significant time in both.
european cities: typically built for density. I'm never more than a 10 minuite walk to a grocery store. I can hop on a train or tram to get to work and I can usually stop to get groceries for the day on the way. if you're in a city like athens, you can get fresh fish and meat. was probably dreaming of finding a mate or eating fresh acorns on the other side of the pasture barely a day ago.
USA: Its a hellish landscape of urban sprawl. want to get sone milk or eggs? its illegal in most place for there to exist a grocery store within walking distance. be prepared to walk along the side of a busy road to get to a convenience store which might have what you are looking for. maybe there's a sidewalk if you're lucky. Every damn trip requires a car. your work place is probably 30 min drive minimum. there is no other way to get to work. since getting to the store requires effort, you're going to go get a week's worth of groceries to save time. fresh meat? nah, killed weeks ago in a centralized slaughter house and shipped accross the country after a life of being fed corn farmed with chemical fertilizers and shipped to the animals in temperature controlled facilities. better keep a large fridge to hold it all. wouldn't want it to spoil before you eat it.
you literally can't live in the USA without increasing your consumption. its built into the dna of our infrastructure.
> If you take the reasoning one step back, wouldn't it be easier to optimize the consumption side (low hanging fruit) in favour if optimizing the cost per unit of energy?
Yes, absolutely.
In general, if you talk to a good solar sales rep, they'll first ask if you have done energy efficiency projects. If you have good quality windows, insulation, appliances, etc, not only are you going to be more efficient up front but you'll need a smaller array+battery overall.
There are also tax benefits for doing some of those projects together so you get some upside there too.
Developers won't make homes below a certain square footage because it's not profitable for them. That means that there will always be an amount of square footage that will need to be cooled and warmed, despite the space being largely unused.
Most people, like the couple in this article, aren't buying green 1350sqft homes, they're buying 2500 sqft McMansions because those are what are available in the market.
> Probably not worth it and I'd expect 3 days to be overkill. But a community that was double our size will have a cost of about 25k per unit for 1.5 days of power - which doesn't sound too bad to me.
If you're not looking to go completely off-grid, I think you want to double it again. At basic level, battery pack is there to soak solar power during a day and give it off when the solar is down.
16 hours is enough to cover most or all of that..
I think the model could work if the local community basically "sold" the battery storage capacity to the users.
Pay few cents for kWh to store it for 24 hours, anything in excess can be sold back to residents at slightly lower than market price, producing some money for maintenance and upgrades.
Realistically you could get that number 6x smaller, because people could voluntarily cut their usage from 30kwh to 15 when the power is out, and 1.5 days of power is probably overkill when 12 hours would get you through 99% of power out scenarios in America.
On top of that, when the grid is functioning normally, you could use the batteries to get cheaper electric rates with time of use pricing.
You probably should divide all those number of days estimates by at least 2 or 3, because in many (most?) places the times when power failures are most likely are also the times when households need the most electricity.
For example here in western Washington outages are most likely during winter, which is also when we are using the most electricity. My daily winter use is 3.5-4 times my daily summer use, perhaps even more on those years when we get a week of near record cold.
Some of the Bluetti home power stuff looks nice to me as an individual and not requiring any community cooperation. It’s not as sleek as a power wall but I have space for it
It'd become much more sustainable to do what you're talking about if it was accompanied by energy saving measures. Do it well and you could easily aim for 5kWh per day per house by minimising heating and cooling choices.
25k per unit, assuming the battery lasts 5 years, is uneconomically high at $5k/year per home.
A 100kw generator can produce enough power for 100 homes, costs ~$50k all in, and ~$1k per day in fuel costs to run during an outage. Assuming the generator also lasts 5 years, that's only $100/year per home, 50x less than the battery solution.
Batteries are for the foreseeable future way too expensive.
anker, being a Chinese manufacturer, doesn't have much chance to penetrate the western markets. even assuming they can develop a dependable product. but I wouldn't trust more than a headphone, or a wall charger from them.
I agree on being careful with China goods in general, but Anker is one of the very few very trustworthy brands out there. IIRC, the only fuck-up regarding batteries they did was with the 535 power banks, and they handled that one very solidly [1].
This story of decentralization has played out before. The hazard is that private grid infrastructure becomes affordable by the upper class, they stop soliciting politicians to maintain infrastructure. Once the middle class can afford it, then the votes evaporate, and the lower class is absolutely fucked. A half rotten water supply or electric grid becomes fully rotten every time there’s stress on the system.
Phasing out natural gas in new construction is going to cause this passion play in slow motion. Have you priced out induction stoves? Phew.
> Phasing out natural gas in new construction is going to cause this passion play in slow motion. Have you priced out induction stoves? Phew.
More than two thirds of US households already have electric stoves, and normal non-induction electric stoves are about the same price as gas ones. A ban on gas stoves would only affect rich people for the most part.
Indication stoves are claimed to be as good as gas. However the cheapest induction stove in the US is 3x the price of the cheapest gas or electric. And if you go stove shopping you with find lots of options for gas or regular electric, but often only one induction model - if you want some combination of features and are willing to pay - you often still can't get it with induction. (dual ovens, number of burners, burner configuration, non-standard widths - there are lots of options that are at least interesting to someone who is cooking)
When it comes to cooking, non-induction electric stoves are a downgrade from gas stoves, even if they're the same price. Induction stoves are at least an upgrade in some respects, but a downgrade in terms of cookware compatibility. Phasing out gas stoves might be the future, but I wouldn't describe it as something that only affects rich people.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has provisions where low-income households can get an electric or electric induction stove fully reimbursed, up to $840. Middle-income households can get half the price of the stove reimbursed.
Apparently, individual states have to do stuff, so it might be like the medicaid expansions where some states opt out of providing stuff for poor people to make a political point.
Off-topic but I just don't get why we means-test this. So what if 1% of Americans get $840 so long as the other 99% also get $840 towards a new stove. Surely the cost of means testing and administration is more than 1%?
So far I believe only one state has opted out, Florida. It's not really comparable to opting out of expanded Medicaid because at least with expanded Medicaid a state could make a somewhat colorable non-political argument for not participating.
Under the ACA Medicaid expansion the federal government covered 90% of the cost and the state covered 10% of the cost. I believe some of the states claimed that they could not afford that 10%.
With the energy efficiency rebates under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) each state has to administer the rebates for that state's consumers, but the allows the states to use a portion of their gran for for the cost of that, including hiring staff.
So basically a state just has to apply, get the administrative money to cover setting up a program to distribute the rebates, then get their share of the IRA and BIL money and distribute it.
In Florida deSantis used his veto to block authorization for the state to get and use the $5 million portion of their grant that would be for administration and so Florida residents will not be getting the $174 million in energy efficiency improvement rebates, or the $173 million in appliance rebates, or the $7 million for a training program for electrification contracts, or other smaller grants from those laws. All in all, Florida is turning down $377 million.
deSantis has not given a reason, but it is likely part of his "Fight Back Against the Woke Agenda" theme he's basing his campaign on. Reducing emissions and increasing energy efficiency is "woke" in current far right circle.
Other recent actions taken in his fight against "woke"ness are tax breaks for purchasing gas stoves and killing a bill that would have directed state agencies to consider lifetime cost of ownership when purchasing cars.
> Phasing out natural gas in new construction is going to cause this passion play in slow motion. Have you priced out induction stoves? Phew.
Two things here. For one, natural gas has to be removed from the market as the supply of gas is finite, it's bound to raise in price anyway due to CO2 taxes, it emits toxic particulates associated with lung disease, it's more efficient to run a heat pump than burn any kind of fossil fuel, and it's a major fire/explosion hazard particularly when maintenance is neglected.
The other side is, if you're worried about electricity going down, you can always grab a gas cylinder for a camping stove and live off of that for a week and more - personally, I have an Enders Explorer portable grill that can double as a stove and two 5kg cylinders of gas, mostly to run outdoor BBQs but also usable in case of a prolonged grid outage.
Banning natural gas appliances doesn't stop natural gas production. It's a byproduct of oil production. Fly over any oil field, and you'll see natural gas being burned as a waste product everywhere. Only when natural gas prices go up do oil companies start capturing it to sell.
If you worry about electricity going down you can buy a portable generator powerful enough to run at least some of the stove. Odds are you have never had your electric stove using the full power it can in theory consume (all burners on high and the oven heating), so long as your actual use is less than the stove needs this works.
Heat pumps are great, but it sometimes gets cold enough where I live that they are less efficient than a modern gas furnace. (not every year, but still often enough that I need to plan on those days or my pipes will freeze)
Is it ironic that the technology is being developed and tested in poor neighborhoods? [0]
> Honghao Zheng, an analytics manager for Chicago's electric company, ComEd, described the microgrid as the seed of something bigger. Moving from a centralized energy model to a decentralized one is the goal, he said.
> Zheng said what's novel about the Bronzeville project is that this grid, unlike others, is not a "one-way street" of power — it's designed to be able to "cluster" with other microgrids, such as the one at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Later this year ComEd plans to test the grids' "island" function, meaning its ability to disconnect from the larger grid.
> "This is only a starting point," Zheng said. "We are also thinking about how to expand this kind of innovative technology."
A microgrid as it's known right now disconnects itself into an island that provides power for everything inside of it when the larger grid goes down. But what they're building now is a cluster of microgrids such that one microgrid can send its excess power to neighboring microgrids so they all have power. If this all works out then the rich folks aren't simply isolating themselves, they are also providing resiliency to their less-fortunate neighbors.
What are some examples of this type of decentralization scenario playing out before? What you’re saying makes sense to me, but my hope would be that the decentralization would serve more as a supplement than a replacement - therefore still requiring ongoing maintenance and investment to main infra. The alternative without these microgrids and other microinfra is almost guaranteed to result in the half or fully rotten systems you predict as the prevailing recent political climate doesn’t give much confidence in terms of getting such massive projects planned and completed successfully (US-centric response).
When solar was becoming affordable, there was a lot of talk in the industry about "grid defection" exactly as you describe, but it didn't come to pass.
Now that energy storage is getting radically cheaper too, I think there's a decent chance that what you predict could happen. It would be... enormously bad.
And I agree load growth plays a part in all this. The big growth will come from electric vehicles--once cars are all electric, that will roughly double the electricity demand.
Roofs generally last for 30 years. In my neighborhood at least, which was all built-out in a 3 year period in the mid-1970s, most of the roofs were replaced about 10-15 years ago (they're rated for 30 years, but everyone pushes their luck as far as possible). Because they replaced their roof pre-~2014 it wasn't cheap or common to do so and thus very little solar was installed at that point.
Those who have had their roof replaced in the last 5-7 years went ahead and put solar on top. My guess would be that when the neighborhood "cycles" through new roofs again in ~15 years, more than half will elect to put in solar or solar/battery combo. We are due for a new roof in 2-3 years and plan on doing solar at that time, and possibly even battery.
Natural gas stoves are unhealthy[1]. Poor people already have worse health than rich people for a multitude of reasons [2].
So if more poor people get access to places with electrical stoves, their health improves.
I only looked at walmart.com: Cheapest gas stove was 122US$, cheapest induction 222US$. If the 100US$ difference is relevant, you're neither building a house nor looking to rent an apt without a kitchen anyway.
It's unhelpful to link to Google searches as sources; the first page of results is usually just news or blog articles very thin on facts.
The risks to health of natural gas stoves (basically, just the production of NO2 and particulate matter) are almost all due to insufficient ventilation. Houses will need more and better (active) ventilation going forward anyway, as increasing insulation standards for homes mean they don't "breath" as much as they used to. So there's other ways to mitigate those health risks that don't involve banning something that many people enjoy using.
Poor people as a whole indeed do have overall worth health than rich people, but switching to electric stoves won't move the needle almost at all. Gas stoves are most linked to pediatric asthma[0], but in terms of stuff that affect poor people more than rich people, that's hypertension, arthritis, smoking, and obesity[1], none of which care what kind of stove you cook with at home.
This is what happens when general public service infrastructure becomes so bloated and ineffectual that even at huge scale it can not compete with small scale alternatives.
At some point it becomes more efficient to put in a natural gas/water/electric storage in your back yard than pay for public service delivery.
The electric grid is what it is today because several problems can only be addressed at scale. There is no way that individuals will accept all the reliability, maintenance and risk that comes with running their own electrical infrastructure. More importantly, location is a very important metric here.
I always feel that comments on solar or renewable energy on this site come from a California-centric perspective. In almost all regions of the planet, power generation at scale provides security, resilience, stability, reliability and other metrics that are always superior to smaller, individual power generation sources.
> This story of decentralization has played out before.
Citation needed.
This reads just like a really strong defense of centralized systems, ignoring the robustness and economic benefits of a decentralized grid, purely to push a political agenda.
I'm willing to bet most people on here have never actually experienced living with decentralized infrastructure, and only have an abstract understanding of what it entails. I live on the edge of a state forest where the only centralized service we have is electricity (we still have solar). We have gas bottles for cooking and hot water, and when one runs out we switch it over and get it replaced. For sewerage we get the septic tank pumped, and for water we collect rainwater. If we have a dry year or use too much, we have to pay for water cartage. If the pump goes down, I'm either fixing it myself or paying someone else to fix it on short notice.
Now, I chose this and it's how I grew up, so I wouldn't have it any other way. But the beauty of centralized systems is that they offset these burdens to an authority that handles all of that for you. If I were unable to pay for a new pump, well, I would have no water. A centralized system paid for by taxes guarantees that everyone will always have access to water under fairly mild conditions.
The failure of centralized systems and people resorting to locally decentralized solutions isn't indicative of decentralized solutions being better, but more a failure of governance and bureaucracy. I mean, there's a reason we all moved from decentralized systems (like getting water from a well) to centralized systems in the first place. That's not to say that decentralized anything doesn't also have advantages, only that the distinction really matters, and people should be sure of what it is they're advocating for when they want to decentralize infrastructure like electricity and water that are vital for survival.
Is there a good technical analysis on whether microgrids are helpful in the context of a first world country with a reliable, well-run large electricity grid?
On the face of it, larger grids seem better. I simply don't believe this claim in the NYT article: "microgrid also eases the burden on the local utility, because it can disconnect from the larger grid during a period of overload". (Either the microgrid doesn't have enough power or has too much; either way it'd be better to share its resources, no?)
As a PG&E customer I'm stretching a lot to assume "a reliable, well-run grid". I've got my own picogrid here with solar and a generator because our grid is so badly run. But I'm still a technocrat optimist and think most grids can be run at very large scale well. Am I wrong?
Microgrids aren’t exactly new; essential campus type facilities (hospitals, universities, emergency services, military facilities, etc.) have often run their own grids. The major difference is that it is now starting to get affordable for residential.
The particular problem it solves is mostly the cascade. You can disconnect to insulate from cascading failure, you can probably restart a microgrid easier since it’s less things to sync, etc. And a cascade can happen for all sorts of reasons, whether that be operator error (2003 Northeast blackout), a natural disaster that hits the wrong way (hurricane/tornado/earthquake/tsunami) or intentional human disaster (Ukraine)
Here is a nice link to a university microgrid explanation [0]. They claim that it allows them to isolate the failure (external or internal) and continue to provide power to the rest of the campus in 1/10 of a second:
> Prior to the installation of the microgrid, Illinois Tech experienced three or more power outages each year, at a cost of up to $500,000 annually in restoration expenses, lost productivity, and ruined experiments that often cannot be recovered.
> "microgrid also eases the burden on the local utility, because it can disconnect from the larger grid during a period of overload". (Either the microgrid doesn't have enough power or has too much; either way it'd be better to share its resources, no?)
Maybe, but probably not. The microgrid is often much more expensive than the regular grid, and provides noisy power that the grid doesn't want. Think diesel generators. Getting those power sources to sync up with the grid is tricky and adds much higher costs to equipment that most places don't need.
Some utilities will give you a discount on your power if a few times on their busiest days you agree to disconnect from the main grid and run your backup. These are days when power is most expensive for everyone (the grid is running their more expensive power sources), so that the microgrid is also using expensive power balances out. It is generally only considered worth doing this if you already are thinking about having a microgrid that can work when the local power goes out. However if you are already thinking about installing such a system you can save a lot of money by being able to separate from the regular grid on demand - but it isn't enough to pay for the install and maintenance costs of the microgrid.
Now if your microgrid is solar you provide clean power that is easy to sync up with the rest of the grid. To make solar work as a micro grid requires expensive batteries (which need to be maintained and replaced correctly). So for solar installs connecting to the grid makes sense if you can as it is cheaper. Even if you do want the microgrid for power outages, you can get by on a much cheaper system if you don't buy a system large enough to handle your worst case usage (which is a long sequence of cloudy days in winter)
Microgrids are probably too small (we want economies of scale here), but it would make a whole lot of sense to move some of the storage near the generation when more and more energy gets shifted to solar.
Something like a big battery pack at every substation to handle the local loads when solar is down and help with peaks
During a period of overload, which I interpret to mean the demand exceeding both traditional supply and micro grid supply, there has to be some kind of disconnection to protect the grid. When that disconnection happens, micro grids can at least still power limited number of appliances.
Making the grid larger and more extensively shared power decreases the probability of overload but increases the inconvenience when such overload does happen.
Tesla's Powerwall + Virtual Power Plant software allow individuals to profit from arbitraging electricity prices while doubling as a distributed energy grid. Combine that with Megapacks (buffer battery arrays for municipalities) and you've got a distributed energy grid that absorbs load effectively, and makes money for its participants..
My friend lives in a small neighborhood north of SF in Marin County, but down a small road that frequently washes out. They were constantly losing power and would be down for days if not longer during big storms that drop a lot of limbs and wash the road out. Rather than deal with the urgency of restoring power to them and all that entailed, PG&E just installed a Powerwall in every house. Many of the houses already had solar so now when the main power line is cut, they can go for days/weeks and live relatively normally. Batteries are going to make a lot of things much easier.
And in a sane world, few would have a physical internet connection unless you’re really pushing serious data (which probably doesn’t need to be from home anyway).
I’ve toyed with shutting my router and modem at night on a timer because it’s a waste of 15-20w of electricity for nothing.
To give some idea of the arbitrage potential, in Texas right now the price is usually $20-$30 / MWh for much of each day, but rises into the hundreds or even low thousands during times of peak demand, usually for 4-6 hours each day. This pattern is very common during the hottest ~4 months of the year.
As the cost of this equipment goes down, this can totally become commonplace, what I fear is the HOA being the monopoly energy, telco, water, and sewage provider that can then charge ridiculous rates because it simply resell from the upstream provider. They can also make the rules on what, if any, value a homeowner can derive from solar panels on their roof, perhaps even going so far as to say that they belong to the HOA and are required to have them on their roof.
If you don't think the HOA is acting in your benefit do you not feel you can affect change by going to the meetings and building a coalition of your neighbors to take control?
This has been my stance on the issue, but I am just pessimistic for the first generation of HOA leadership because it tends to attract nosy, controlling busybodies that love draconian rules. It’s not until those people die off or move where new leadership has an opportunity to flourish.
Additionally, my statement was more generalized view of how it could be used, obviously if a homeowner finds themselves in this situation, the strategy would be to gather neighbors support and demand it to be changed or just do a hostile takeover of the HOA.
Sure, if I have time. The point of a republic form of government is that you vote every few years and then live your life. While it does take time to figure out who to vote for you don't have to figure out every petty issue, some of which you don't even care about (in a pure democracy you have to decide, and that means learn about them even though you don't care)
HOAs are too small to attract good people to run. (nations are too large and attract tyrants)
HOAs are in many cases a collection of opinionated amateurs making binding decisions on behalf of their disinterested neighbors. See also 'special assessments' And that's the best case scenario. HOAs can get a tad 'authoritarian' at least according to John Oliver: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os&pp=ygUPam9obiBvbGl...
For ones serving municipalities or communities, sure. My electric company is a co-op, but it is also not a dedicated reseller as it generates most of its power and usually has surplus it sells to PG&E.
With an HOA, the very land your home is built on has this sort of lien via a “special property assessment” and you are subject to their policy or risk having your home taken in a 100% legal way. My electric company cannot do that to me.
It's mildly ironic that one of the drivers of solar, battery and EV uptake in the US is private individuals responding to the fallability of the grid and planning for when their connection fails.
Grid fragility leads to distributed resilience while driving down the cost of the tech you mentioned as volume ramps. Innovation cannibalism. Systems working as intended.
This content is not on the internet. Can I also submit links to any local site that requires a subscription in order to view the article? Or does this specific site get an exception?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so.
Yes, you can submit any local site with a paywall. For what is worth, it is part of the "community guidelines" for HN to not complain about paywalls (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html ). Someone will probably post a pirated archive link shortly (edit: they already have).
I think it is time to reconsider these guidelines. I believe that this community should stand for freely accessible information on the Internet. As it is, we are being gamed: we are used to upvote and popularize content behind paywalls. The owners do not make it freely available, but still get the benefits of the community.
I have nothing against paywalls and paid content (in fact, I subscribe to news publications myself), but I believe they have no place on HN. Either it's on the Internet, or it isn't.
Readit News
Some rough numbers I did a month or two ago - Tesla offers a megapack that has 3.9 MWh at a cost of $2.4m. "In 2021, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. home was 10,632 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Or about 886 kWh per month." That's about 30 kWh per day; my community has 45 houses, so use of 1.35 MWh in total, so a megapack will provide power for 3 days for the community at a cost of ~50k per house. Probably not worth it and I'd expect 3 days to be overkill. But a community that was double our size will have a cost of about 25k per unit for 1.5 days of power - which doesn't sound too bad to me.
Another thing I've found interesting is Anker seems to be getting into the home power business - https://www.anker.com/anker-solix/home-energy-solutions?ref=... - which I'm hopeful about, since it doesn't seem like anyone except Tesla has been able to make something that feels simple/easy/attractive. Every time I've look at Powerwall alternatives I'm been unimpressed by the offerings; maybe Anker can deliver.
Once the meter and main panel are separate, the various backup solutions become pretty similar. The disconnect switch installs between the two, with the solar and battery attached. Sometimes the disconnect switch + solar + battery are all in one unit (like the Bluetti EP900), while sometimes the solar inverter, battery, and switch are all separate units (like Tesla or Enphase). The Tesla switch and battery are sleek & glossy, but the inverters are ugly. The Enphase stuff isn't quite as shiny, but at least the boxes look consistent.
Performance-wise, the systems seem pretty similar as well. Most systems are around $10K for 10KWh of capacity, with somewhere around 6-9 KW of peak discharge rate. I imagine these prices will drop a lot over the next decades. If the battery becomes obsolete, just install a different system. Once the home is correctly wired, swapping the storage system should be pretty straightforward.
It doesn't need to be.
You can just use a physical interlock and toggle between utility breaker and (any input you want) breaker.
You can do this on an integrated meter panel.
This is a dead-simple configuration that you can comprehend - and verify - with your own eyes.
The lock-out switch is NEC compliant, utility approved, etc.:
https://www.amazon.com/Generator-Interlock-Compatible-Homeli...
Yes, you do lose all power for a second or two but ... so much simpler and comprehensible than an ATX solution.
Just a thought that naturally pops up... :
If you take the reasoning one step back, wouldn't it be easier to optimize the consumption side (low hanging fruit) in favour if optimizing the cost per unit of energy? The latter seems a lot of effort, at least for the devs.
The average US household used 77 million BTU of energy in 2015 [1]. That's 1.94 TOE (tons of oil equivalent).
The EU average in 2014 was 1.3 TOE. It ranged from a little under 0.5 (Malta) to around 2.7 (Luxembourg) [2]. UK and Germany were around 1.4, France around 1.7, Italy around 1.9. Belgium was just under 2.
[1] https://rpsc.energy.gov/energy-data-facts
[2] https://www.enerdata.net/publications/executive-briefing/hou...
european cities: typically built for density. I'm never more than a 10 minuite walk to a grocery store. I can hop on a train or tram to get to work and I can usually stop to get groceries for the day on the way. if you're in a city like athens, you can get fresh fish and meat. was probably dreaming of finding a mate or eating fresh acorns on the other side of the pasture barely a day ago.
USA: Its a hellish landscape of urban sprawl. want to get sone milk or eggs? its illegal in most place for there to exist a grocery store within walking distance. be prepared to walk along the side of a busy road to get to a convenience store which might have what you are looking for. maybe there's a sidewalk if you're lucky. Every damn trip requires a car. your work place is probably 30 min drive minimum. there is no other way to get to work. since getting to the store requires effort, you're going to go get a week's worth of groceries to save time. fresh meat? nah, killed weeks ago in a centralized slaughter house and shipped accross the country after a life of being fed corn farmed with chemical fertilizers and shipped to the animals in temperature controlled facilities. better keep a large fridge to hold it all. wouldn't want it to spoil before you eat it.
you literally can't live in the USA without increasing your consumption. its built into the dna of our infrastructure.
Yes, absolutely.
In general, if you talk to a good solar sales rep, they'll first ask if you have done energy efficiency projects. If you have good quality windows, insulation, appliances, etc, not only are you going to be more efficient up front but you'll need a smaller array+battery overall.
There are also tax benefits for doing some of those projects together so you get some upside there too.
Most people, like the couple in this article, aren't buying green 1350sqft homes, they're buying 2500 sqft McMansions because those are what are available in the market.
If you're not looking to go completely off-grid, I think you want to double it again. At basic level, battery pack is there to soak solar power during a day and give it off when the solar is down.
16 hours is enough to cover most or all of that..
I think the model could work if the local community basically "sold" the battery storage capacity to the users.
Pay few cents for kWh to store it for 24 hours, anything in excess can be sold back to residents at slightly lower than market price, producing some money for maintenance and upgrades.
On top of that, when the grid is functioning normally, you could use the batteries to get cheaper electric rates with time of use pricing.
Here's a fun tool that lets you play around with the balance of these things and see the expected cost: https://reopt.nrel.gov/tool
For example here in western Washington outages are most likely during winter, which is also when we are using the most electricity. My daily winter use is 3.5-4 times my daily summer use, perhaps even more on those years when we get a week of near record cold.
https://www.bluettipower.com/collections/home-battery-backup
A 100kw generator can produce enough power for 100 homes, costs ~$50k all in, and ~$1k per day in fuel costs to run during an outage. Assuming the generator also lasts 5 years, that's only $100/year per home, 50x less than the battery solution.
Batteries are for the foreseeable future way too expensive.
kind of dismissive..
Doing solar in places that perhaps aren't as sunny, and which could easily connect to a grid, is newsworthy.
Even if you prefer a US maker, competition will help lower prices.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/anker-recalls-some-535-p...
Phasing out natural gas in new construction is going to cause this passion play in slow motion. Have you priced out induction stoves? Phew.
More than two thirds of US households already have electric stoves, and normal non-induction electric stoves are about the same price as gas ones. A ban on gas stoves would only affect rich people for the most part.
And professional kitchens.
For the record I agree with phasing them out but I can see restaurant chefs fighting hard against it.
Apparently, individual states have to do stuff, so it might be like the medicaid expansions where some states opt out of providing stuff for poor people to make a political point.
Under the ACA Medicaid expansion the federal government covered 90% of the cost and the state covered 10% of the cost. I believe some of the states claimed that they could not afford that 10%.
With the energy efficiency rebates under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) each state has to administer the rebates for that state's consumers, but the allows the states to use a portion of their gran for for the cost of that, including hiring staff.
So basically a state just has to apply, get the administrative money to cover setting up a program to distribute the rebates, then get their share of the IRA and BIL money and distribute it.
In Florida deSantis used his veto to block authorization for the state to get and use the $5 million portion of their grant that would be for administration and so Florida residents will not be getting the $174 million in energy efficiency improvement rebates, or the $173 million in appliance rebates, or the $7 million for a training program for electrification contracts, or other smaller grants from those laws. All in all, Florida is turning down $377 million.
deSantis has not given a reason, but it is likely part of his "Fight Back Against the Woke Agenda" theme he's basing his campaign on. Reducing emissions and increasing energy efficiency is "woke" in current far right circle.
Other recent actions taken in his fight against "woke"ness are tax breaks for purchasing gas stoves and killing a bill that would have directed state agencies to consider lifetime cost of ownership when purchasing cars.
I would certainly hope my state isn’t giving out tax-payer funded luxury stoves.
There is no such thing as “free” here.
Two things here. For one, natural gas has to be removed from the market as the supply of gas is finite, it's bound to raise in price anyway due to CO2 taxes, it emits toxic particulates associated with lung disease, it's more efficient to run a heat pump than burn any kind of fossil fuel, and it's a major fire/explosion hazard particularly when maintenance is neglected.
The other side is, if you're worried about electricity going down, you can always grab a gas cylinder for a camping stove and live off of that for a week and more - personally, I have an Enders Explorer portable grill that can double as a stove and two 5kg cylinders of gas, mostly to run outdoor BBQs but also usable in case of a prolonged grid outage.
I'd drop this argument your other points are good but while gas might technically be finite it's not on any timescale that matters here.
Heat pumps are great, but it sometimes gets cold enough where I live that they are less efficient than a modern gas furnace. (not every year, but still often enough that I need to plan on those days or my pipes will freeze)
Is it ironic that the technology is being developed and tested in poor neighborhoods? [0]
> Honghao Zheng, an analytics manager for Chicago's electric company, ComEd, described the microgrid as the seed of something bigger. Moving from a centralized energy model to a decentralized one is the goal, he said.
> Zheng said what's novel about the Bronzeville project is that this grid, unlike others, is not a "one-way street" of power — it's designed to be able to "cluster" with other microgrids, such as the one at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Later this year ComEd plans to test the grids' "island" function, meaning its ability to disconnect from the larger grid.
> "This is only a starting point," Zheng said. "We are also thinking about how to expand this kind of innovative technology."
A microgrid as it's known right now disconnects itself into an island that provides power for everything inside of it when the larger grid goes down. But what they're building now is a cluster of microgrids such that one microgrid can send its excess power to neighboring microgrids so they all have power. If this all works out then the rich folks aren't simply isolating themselves, they are also providing resiliency to their less-fortunate neighbors.
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-bronzeville-neighbor...
"Man, we had no power for DAYS and I only got $14.75 from that stupid electric grid thing"
I am not very knowledgeable about this, but the public/private school debate seems to be one possibility.
Now that energy storage is getting radically cheaper too, I think there's a decent chance that what you predict could happen. It would be... enormously bad.
And I agree load growth plays a part in all this. The big growth will come from electric vehicles--once cars are all electric, that will roughly double the electricity demand.
Those who have had their roof replaced in the last 5-7 years went ahead and put solar on top. My guess would be that when the neighborhood "cycles" through new roofs again in ~15 years, more than half will elect to put in solar or solar/battery combo. We are due for a new roof in 2-3 years and plan on doing solar at that time, and possibly even battery.
I only looked at walmart.com: Cheapest gas stove was 122US$, cheapest induction 222US$. If the 100US$ difference is relevant, you're neither building a house nor looking to rent an apt without a kitchen anyway.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=natural+gas+stove+health [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=health+of+poor+people e.g. https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-deter...
The risks to health of natural gas stoves (basically, just the production of NO2 and particulate matter) are almost all due to insufficient ventilation. Houses will need more and better (active) ventilation going forward anyway, as increasing insulation standards for homes mean they don't "breath" as much as they used to. So there's other ways to mitigate those health risks that don't involve banning something that many people enjoy using.
Poor people as a whole indeed do have overall worth health than rich people, but switching to electric stoves won't move the needle almost at all. Gas stoves are most linked to pediatric asthma[0], but in terms of stuff that affect poor people more than rich people, that's hypertension, arthritis, smoking, and obesity[1], none of which care what kind of stove you cook with at home.
[0]: https://rmi.org/gas-stoves-health-climate-asthma-risk/
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2016/16_0088.htm
At some point it becomes more efficient to put in a natural gas/water/electric storage in your back yard than pay for public service delivery.
The electric grid is what it is today because several problems can only be addressed at scale. There is no way that individuals will accept all the reliability, maintenance and risk that comes with running their own electrical infrastructure. More importantly, location is a very important metric here.
I always feel that comments on solar or renewable energy on this site come from a California-centric perspective. In almost all regions of the planet, power generation at scale provides security, resilience, stability, reliability and other metrics that are always superior to smaller, individual power generation sources.
Citation needed.
This reads just like a really strong defense of centralized systems, ignoring the robustness and economic benefits of a decentralized grid, purely to push a political agenda.
Now, I chose this and it's how I grew up, so I wouldn't have it any other way. But the beauty of centralized systems is that they offset these burdens to an authority that handles all of that for you. If I were unable to pay for a new pump, well, I would have no water. A centralized system paid for by taxes guarantees that everyone will always have access to water under fairly mild conditions.
The failure of centralized systems and people resorting to locally decentralized solutions isn't indicative of decentralized solutions being better, but more a failure of governance and bureaucracy. I mean, there's a reason we all moved from decentralized systems (like getting water from a well) to centralized systems in the first place. That's not to say that decentralized anything doesn't also have advantages, only that the distinction really matters, and people should be sure of what it is they're advocating for when they want to decentralize infrastructure like electricity and water that are vital for survival.
Dead Comment
On the face of it, larger grids seem better. I simply don't believe this claim in the NYT article: "microgrid also eases the burden on the local utility, because it can disconnect from the larger grid during a period of overload". (Either the microgrid doesn't have enough power or has too much; either way it'd be better to share its resources, no?)
As a PG&E customer I'm stretching a lot to assume "a reliable, well-run grid". I've got my own picogrid here with solar and a generator because our grid is so badly run. But I'm still a technocrat optimist and think most grids can be run at very large scale well. Am I wrong?
The particular problem it solves is mostly the cascade. You can disconnect to insulate from cascading failure, you can probably restart a microgrid easier since it’s less things to sync, etc. And a cascade can happen for all sorts of reasons, whether that be operator error (2003 Northeast blackout), a natural disaster that hits the wrong way (hurricane/tornado/earthquake/tsunami) or intentional human disaster (Ukraine)
> Prior to the installation of the microgrid, Illinois Tech experienced three or more power outages each year, at a cost of up to $500,000 annually in restoration expenses, lost productivity, and ruined experiments that often cannot be recovered.
[0] https://www.iit.edu/microgrid
E.g. see some of the recent NERC reports https://www.powermag.com/nerc-warns-of-mounting-reliability-...
Maybe, but probably not. The microgrid is often much more expensive than the regular grid, and provides noisy power that the grid doesn't want. Think diesel generators. Getting those power sources to sync up with the grid is tricky and adds much higher costs to equipment that most places don't need.
Some utilities will give you a discount on your power if a few times on their busiest days you agree to disconnect from the main grid and run your backup. These are days when power is most expensive for everyone (the grid is running their more expensive power sources), so that the microgrid is also using expensive power balances out. It is generally only considered worth doing this if you already are thinking about having a microgrid that can work when the local power goes out. However if you are already thinking about installing such a system you can save a lot of money by being able to separate from the regular grid on demand - but it isn't enough to pay for the install and maintenance costs of the microgrid.
Now if your microgrid is solar you provide clean power that is easy to sync up with the rest of the grid. To make solar work as a micro grid requires expensive batteries (which need to be maintained and replaced correctly). So for solar installs connecting to the grid makes sense if you can as it is cheaper. Even if you do want the microgrid for power outages, you can get by on a much cheaper system if you don't buy a system large enough to handle your worst case usage (which is a long sequence of cloudy days in winter)
Something like a big battery pack at every substation to handle the local loads when solar is down and help with peaks
Making the grid larger and more extensively shared power decreases the probability of overload but increases the inconvenience when such overload does happen.
I’ve toyed with shutting my router and modem at night on a timer because it’s a waste of 15-20w of electricity for nothing.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/systemwideprice...
Why on earth would I willingly give up the rights to do what I wish with my own property as long as I follow city codes?
...and no, 'property values' don't cut it. I don't even consider my home when factoring my productive net worth.
Additionally, my statement was more generalized view of how it could be used, obviously if a homeowner finds themselves in this situation, the strategy would be to gather neighbors support and demand it to be changed or just do a hostile takeover of the HOA.
HOAs are too small to attract good people to run. (nations are too large and attract tyrants)
With an HOA, the very land your home is built on has this sort of lien via a “special property assessment” and you are subject to their policy or risk having your home taken in a 100% legal way. My electric company cannot do that to me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Alternatively an ignorelist of domains would be nice.
I get that we don’t want to spiral on discussing things, but can’t discuss them at all is draconian.
I have nothing against paywalls and paid content (in fact, I subscribe to news publications myself), but I believe they have no place on HN. Either it's on the Internet, or it isn't.