patrick.net

AD says

It's CA so generally clear skies, but I don't buy the solar number. And no Nat Gas on the chart. Didn't CA have a leaky power plant with Nat. Gas? Is this just all non-CO2 producing electric. They all produce massive CO2 to create if that's the issues. I don't think it is. We need CO2. I mean do you want to breath? CO2 creates O2. We need more of it.

I've looked into solar a few times. Each time, for me, the problem seems that I just don't use enough solar to get the economies of scale to amortize the fixed costs. I run about 8 kWh / day with most of it after the sun goes down.

PG&E doesn't charge an infrastructure fee, but instead rolls those costs into a higher fee per kWh over and above the generation. For non-solar people that promotes conservation, as it increases the incremental cost. (i.e.: instead of $50/month + 12¢ kWh, where we could use lots of kWh for cheap, we now pay $0/month + 45¢ kWh, so every additional kWh is expensive.)

When solar started, solar people had a net of 0 kWh of generation from the power company and so paid for no infrastructure. As more and more homes went solar and paid for no infrastructure (while simultaneously using infrastructure 24/7 in either using power from the grid at night or putting power on the grid during the day) the remaining non-solar customers were forced to foot the entire infrastructure bill between fewer and fewer people. This was a virtuous cycle for the people pushing for solar. As more people went to solar, the non-solar people were also forced to go solar because of rising prices of sharing the infrastructure costs between fewer and fewer people remaining non-solar.

So, recently, credits for pushing onto the grid have been adjusted so that solar customers no longer have a free ride. You now get very little for pushing your generation onto the grid during the day but still pay for generation (and thus infrastructure) for taking energy from the grid at night. The main result of this is that new solar installations now come with batteries so that you aren't forced to sell your power back onto the grid at very low prices. I can't help but think this pricing scheme is resulting in needless battery installations just to dodge paying for infrastructure while simultaneously — again — forcing the non-solar customers to pay the entire cost of the infrastructure.

I think the (very inefficient and wasteful) end game is that people will go completely off the grid even in towns and cities where shared infrastructure would obviously be more efficient. Each home will have a large personal array of solar panels, a large personal battery, and a personal generator for periods of low generation days. As inefficient as that sounds, it'll be lower cost than participating in the incompetent and corrupt power company aided by the even more incompetent and corrupt government.

Eman says

heat pumps are only just getting started and will save oodles of energy for space and water heating and even clothes drying

If you're talking about reducing load on the electricity grid through efficiency, then I have to disagree completely. My old-fashioned natural gas heater, water heater, and dryer use very little electricity. And my car puts no load at all on the electrical grid (well, except for running the gas pump).