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Re:After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat by logfromblammo on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @01:54PM (#16476624)
And that just encourages development of an automatic switching system such that power generated on site is always used on site. It never goes out to the grid until after 100% of local demand is met, and all local storage devices are topped up.

And that, in turn, would encourage those customers to just go completely independent from the grid and either find some other flexible use for excess power or shut down excess production.

Pretending that local power is using grid infrastructure does not make it so. People can and will disconnect from the grid to disprove that lie.

Re:After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat by jonnycoder on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @02:22PM (#16476902)
I'm surprised this area of smart switches aren't more available or popular.

I've done a small amount of research because I could not find a smart charge controller with AC inputs and I was considering making one with a Raspberry pi.

I did however find a smart air conditioning split system that uses solar panels directly and gets any extra power from 120v ac plug: https://www.practicalpreppers.com/air-conditioning/ac-dc-air...

It's quite effective because when the sun is shining, that's when indoor cooling is needed the most.

Re:After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat by jedberg on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @02:17PM (#16476863)
> People can and will disconnect from the grid to disprove that lie.

More and more municipalities are making this illegal. To protect their utilities, they require that you tie to the grid and sell all electricity you generate to the grid and then buy it back for more.

Re:After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat by Caveman_Coder on Tuesday February 27, 2018 @03:02PM (#16477277)
Can confirm...when I was living in AZ the main argument against net metering is that the Utility company would suffer...nevermind the fact that solar users would benefit, the state legislators and ACC (Arizona Corporation Commission) always sides with the utility company.