Waldo JaquithVermont's Green Mountain Power is going to equip every customer with a backup battery, since that's cheaper than making their power grid more resilient. This is the first half of a good idea. The remaining half would be to provide customers with heavily-subsidized solar panels (amortized over a decade's power bills), creating a distributed power-generation system that can serve customers even when disconnected from the grid. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/business/energy-environment/green-mountain-home-batteries.html?unlocked_article_code=LeKDfU8q__Ways4PG2VyNTDvV6LLU5JNc5L7H_qb312SZnm9OaYuY573BIxiljZ3L55mi6HAWbKGEhmVrH-jIKJnEl6G6t-8FQxeMxe_HZwRtuDnLZeKjkJxgwym5CKHNMWQ23ZrHZ8Zvg3DQwG9Te1D2nLCwW7ixhHUoqUMB7Of3RMrFAS5Y80nHGWd1X8KFKIboUuhOHllGyZ7UHSNNtG6yBOAdPphYFkw1YycDthyDatHwumZki5-XcUEf4yxBv55nlOb0FrwJqhCt17gFpPXgqWUqK5dbsUOHY7eVd799Nd113qS21tX0eiIS3YWXBzfpWimAhK6PbfgbSfGVqktp52RLdkdSvnY2BkhhOzhuTHcE19JHaAG&smid=url-share
gretared@waldoj this is absolutely the way forward but many utilities are scared and unable to face it
Glenn Fleishman@waldoj My god, a step in the right diredction.
Helchose@waldoj Interesting.
Anecdotally, I solved a maximum load problem in my home--15A circuit with too much load after adding computers to a bedroom--by putting a UPS between the wall plug and the computers. The breaker never trips anymore. $125 battery unit saved me a lot of expense.
Jeff Zugale - Z Factory@waldoj I’m gonna say similar things to what I said in another related thread. Are these batteries cobalt-free, or is it okay to abuse Kenyans to power your house?
There are a lot of other long-term ramifications - economic, environmental and political - to this that I’m not sure are being considered.
The fact that’s it’s apparently cheaper (at this moment) to equip a million houses with batteries than to fix the electrical grid should TERRIFY you.
Leslie Seefeldt@waldoj Florida should do this.
Lyle Solla-Yates@waldoj Texas should have done this a long time ago, those absolute maniacs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-30/why-the-texas-power-grid-is-facing-another-crisis-quicktake
Why Texas's Power Grid Is Facing Another Crisis
The electric power grid in Texas, which collapsed dramatically in a 2021 winter storm, is being tested again as the state suffers unusually hot summer weather. Demand for electricity has reached new records at a time of rapid change in the mix of power sources as wind and solar ramp up. That’s feeding a debate about the dependability of the state’s power.
Tim McCormack@waldoj The article doesn't mention whether these are capable of "islanding", continuing to power the house when the grid is down or disconnected. It only talks about using them as grid-controlled distributed storage. Do you know if they'll be installing hybrid systems that can switch to island mode during an outage?
@waldoj Also, I love this quote that implies that madness should be kept proportional to rates:
“If you are leading a utility anywhere in the country you have to get on a path to stop the madness, relative to rates,”
@timmc You really need to keep madness within parameters.
@timmc “We don’t want the power to be off for our customers ever,” Ms. McClure said. “People’s lives are on the line. That is ultimately at the heart of why we’re doing what we’re trying to do.”
@waldoj Oh! Just had a thinko.
I had recently been researching *solar* installations, where the default setup has anti-islanding protection. This surprises some people -- when the grid goes down, the solar panels don't actually power the home. You need a fancier setup than that.
So I read the quote as meaning "we want to make the grid more reliable", not "you'll have backup power".
But of course a *home battery* installation, without solar, would support islanding. Because that's the point!
@timmc Ah, yes, getting solar panels to directly power a house, while also being grid-tied, is actually really hard! You need a battery as a buffer, and having a grid-tied battery that can also take power from solar panels is pretty non-trivial. Tesla PowerWalls can do it, along with just a precious few other options.
David Wheeler@waldoj I think people are working on that.
How to accelerate rooftop solar & household batteries in the US
Sunrun is the biggest residential rooftop solar installer in the US, and recently they've added batteries and EV chargers to their offerings. I talk with CEO Mary Powell about why household electrification is still so difficult & time-consuming, and how the process could be improved.
@theory Whoa, she was at Green Mountain too! I’ll be sure to listen to this.
Kevin Russell
Kathy E. Gill 🇺🇦Also, allow our solar panels to feed our batteries when there’s an outage.
Ridingbetweenthelines@waldoj grid scale solar is waaaay cheaper than distributed. It's something like a third the cost on lazard's latest numbers. It's just a much cheaper/ more efficient/ less resource intensive option to build grid scale.
You don't need the subsidies to make grid scale work either!
@Ridingbetweenthelines Grid scale power is waaaay cheaper than distributed. It's way cheaper to just generate it instead of storing it in everybody's homes! And yet…
@waldoj can you elaborate on it being way cheaper to generate instead of store? Are you referring to batteries? Distributed batteries can make sense. You don't need solar for that though.
Galad@waldoj Providing subsidies and grants for homeowners to climatize their homes is anathema to Vermont. The only thing available right now for homeowners in Vermont are rebates. Our state government is completely controlled by landlords and contractors, so unless it directly lines their pockets then they’re uninterested in doing it.
Jens Elbæk@waldoj Why not make resilient public owned power grid like the roads. Take a look at Europe or at least Scandinavian countries
Epic Lemur