You are quite right Robert. Presently, the grid is a better deal than storage. How much PV is "worth" is another item entirely.
At my home, I have used the best possible location for PV. Trees have to come down (and not all of them mine) to get good sun. Tax credits have to be available AND I have to have enough tax liability to use them. (PV is still to expensive to own without the subsidies (I am happy to get those given how freely they are usually distributed to corporate entities). Duke Progress can't be counted on to pay a fair price for the power I would store if I had more PV. They have have floated the idea that I/we should pay $0.09/kWh when buying power, but they will only pay $0.02 /kWh when I make it. I do pay just under $20 a month when I use no power of theirs at all; supposedly to support the electrical service. It isn't in the cost of a kWh apparently. They say by having more power generation, but no extra paid in for grid service, that I/we are putting the cost of grid service onto all the poor folks that can't afford PV. I think this is money-grubbing and PR, but that is the track they took last year. I pretty much can't justify the unsubsidized PV. In the first sentence I said "presently." I think that holds for all these things. I have reached my goal to reduce our utility expense as much as we reasonably can,,and we contribute some non-use of un-green power. I really like it that we contribute less to the mutli-million dollar salaries and fine offices, and that my power generation is nearly maintenance free for decades to come. I am grateful that the fed and the state saw fit to make this possible. The utility company would not have supported it . They simply want nothing to succeed that they don't have firmly under their control. It is about the best we can do at this time. On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Robert Bruninga via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > > A 20-year T-bill right now is only paying about 2.5%... > > Even if it takes 20 years to pay off the battery system... > > Batteries are not a source of energy. They produce nothing. Solar panels > do. Far better to spend X dollars available for more solar panels which > pay off themselves in about 3 years and use the nearly free storage in the > grid. > > Self-storage (if you have access to the grid) consumes $2 out of every $3 > invested in Solar with zero benefit other than about 4 hours of backup > electricity a year (around here with a 99.96% reliable grid). That's > spending several thousands of dollars for about 60 cents worth of > electricity. > > If you don't have the grid, then sure, on-site storage is required. > > Oh, my zero-usage electric bill is an $8 fixed rate "meter" fee per > month, or $100 a year. That is renting a 10,000 kWh storage system (the > grid). Or about 100 kWh per dollar. Compare that with the 0.01 kWh per > dollar for batteries. > > A 10,000 times better deal if there ever was one. > > Bob, WB4APR > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -- Put this question to yourself: should I use everyone else to attain happiness, or should I help others gain happiness? *Dalai Lama * Tell me what it is you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver, "The summer day." To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. Thomas A. Edison <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasaed125362.html> A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. *Warren Buffet* Michael E. Ross (919) 550-2430 Land (919) 576-0824 <https://www.google.com/voice/b/0?pli=1#phones> Google Phone (919) 631-1451 Cell (919) 513-0418 Desk [email protected] <[email protected]> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20141223/b10fa72d/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
