California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E

Re:California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E by vkou on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @07:16PM (#21458438)

> but you'd think you would save money by contributing to the grid.

You actually don't.

When you are generating most of your own power during renewable generation peaks, and drawing power from the grid, during renewable lulls/peak usage, you are in fact using the grid as a giant, personal battery. (One that would run you in the order of ~$50,000, if you were to build one out for yourself.)

Electricity is relatively cheap, especially during peak renewable generation times. Maintaining the grid is what's expensive.

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Re:California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E by imtringued on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @06:45AM (#21461582)

I don't understand where you get your $50,000 figure from. You can get 8 Powerwalls for that price for a total of 108kWh of energy storage. I don't know what Americans are doing all day to consume 4500kWh per capita (residential energy usage) but even with such a high rate of energy consumption that setup has enough storage to keep running for days during a grid outage. I live alone and consume less than that so this system could keep the lights on for slightly more than 2 weeks. Buffering solar power with such a setup feels like a joke.

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