My thinking is that solar first in California has almost reached saturation point in terms of usefulness to the grid.
It is only useful to the consumer if on NEM 2.0 (that’s where you get almost retail price for electricity you sell back to the grid).
NEM 3.0, where you get a few cents for what you sell, a solar first is hard to justify. Batteries are needed to absorb the excess solar generated during the day to self consume that energy in the evening.
Owning an EV and charging from the solar panels could make solar first viable, especially if you could use the substantially larger battery of an EV as a substitute for a home battery.
I agree with the sentiment with a couple of extra comments...
On the payback, in a CCA + IOU setup (like Peninsula Clean Energy + PG&E), the Generation Export Credit portion is under control by PCE, and PCE is still giving 1:1 export credit, even when PG&E is using NEM 3.0 on the Delivery side. Generation is about 30% of the total bill, but still, 30% at 1:1 has some real value.
(I recently computed the payback for my system under both NEM 2.0 and NEM 2.0+NEM 3.0, but I need to double-check the results before I post about them. I do have an EV, so my load is pretty high.)
I 100% agree with the benefits of having a battery. And I'm a fan of bidirectional charging. That should happen next year.
On the other point - helping the grid - I don't know. It is hard to find numbers. I'll post if I can find something useful.
Many of us are not really interested in the technical aspects of solar power - we only are involved because it's the sustainable thing to do.
I bought my own solar panels in 2002, then hired my own contractor to install.
Please the first time you use an acronym in each post (CCA, VPP) please spell it out. I have to look them up every time!
I'm still not sure that batteries are a sustainable option. They are still not recyclable, use heavy metals mined far away, and don't last long enough. We also need to push for more reusable, sustainable materials. And alternatives to solar, such as local wind (where it is common) and small water turbines where water is already moving by gravity (pipes and streams.)
I tried to spell out the key acronyms; I see I failed in a few and I'll fix that after sending this comment out.
I'll write a post on sustainability of batteries. There has been a lot of progress in the last few years.
The new LFP (Lithium/Iron/Phosphate) batteries use many fewer rare metals than the older NMC (Nickel/Manganese/Cadium) batteries, and there are other chemistries in the pipeline that even use fewer. Stationary batteries can be heavier than those used in cars and that means there are more options available.
The rare metals are very valuable and there are companies focused on recycling those materials. I'll write about that too.
The newer batteries can last a long time. I'll research the latest data for stationary batteries but I track those used in cars and the new target are 1 million miles.
On other sources of energy, I agree but some of them are not practical in our residential uses. We do not have enough wind in our small cities, except in some special cases, and even fewer small hydro. We could do ground-based heat pumps, though, but the cost for those is not yet low enough, and they are not a good source of electricity.
Agree with Edwardo. Battery recycling has started and will accelerate as more batteries become available for recycling. There are just not that many right now.
Battery life is getting better and if you keep charge between 20% and 80% life is long. Try that with your smartphone.
There was a company called Tesloop that ran a ridesharing service between Las Vegas and San Diego/LA using teslas back in the 2018 time frame. They had a car with 300K miles on the original battery still going strong. That’s why I never understood why people think you’d have to budget to replace a battery in an EV.
My thinking is that solar first in California has almost reached saturation point in terms of usefulness to the grid.
It is only useful to the consumer if on NEM 2.0 (that’s where you get almost retail price for electricity you sell back to the grid).
NEM 3.0, where you get a few cents for what you sell, a solar first is hard to justify. Batteries are needed to absorb the excess solar generated during the day to self consume that energy in the evening.
Owning an EV and charging from the solar panels could make solar first viable, especially if you could use the substantially larger battery of an EV as a substitute for a home battery.
I agree with the sentiment with a couple of extra comments...
On the payback, in a CCA + IOU setup (like Peninsula Clean Energy + PG&E), the Generation Export Credit portion is under control by PCE, and PCE is still giving 1:1 export credit, even when PG&E is using NEM 3.0 on the Delivery side. Generation is about 30% of the total bill, but still, 30% at 1:1 has some real value.
(I recently computed the payback for my system under both NEM 2.0 and NEM 2.0+NEM 3.0, but I need to double-check the results before I post about them. I do have an EV, so my load is pretty high.)
I 100% agree with the benefits of having a battery. And I'm a fan of bidirectional charging. That should happen next year.
On the other point - helping the grid - I don't know. It is hard to find numbers. I'll post if I can find something useful.
Many of us are not really interested in the technical aspects of solar power - we only are involved because it's the sustainable thing to do.
I bought my own solar panels in 2002, then hired my own contractor to install.
Please the first time you use an acronym in each post (CCA, VPP) please spell it out. I have to look them up every time!
I'm still not sure that batteries are a sustainable option. They are still not recyclable, use heavy metals mined far away, and don't last long enough. We also need to push for more reusable, sustainable materials. And alternatives to solar, such as local wind (where it is common) and small water turbines where water is already moving by gravity (pipes and streams.)
Thanks for your comment, Darshana!
I tried to spell out the key acronyms; I see I failed in a few and I'll fix that after sending this comment out.
I'll write a post on sustainability of batteries. There has been a lot of progress in the last few years.
The new LFP (Lithium/Iron/Phosphate) batteries use many fewer rare metals than the older NMC (Nickel/Manganese/Cadium) batteries, and there are other chemistries in the pipeline that even use fewer. Stationary batteries can be heavier than those used in cars and that means there are more options available.
The rare metals are very valuable and there are companies focused on recycling those materials. I'll write about that too.
The newer batteries can last a long time. I'll research the latest data for stationary batteries but I track those used in cars and the new target are 1 million miles.
On other sources of energy, I agree but some of them are not practical in our residential uses. We do not have enough wind in our small cities, except in some special cases, and even fewer small hydro. We could do ground-based heat pumps, though, but the cost for those is not yet low enough, and they are not a good source of electricity.
Agree with Edwardo. Battery recycling has started and will accelerate as more batteries become available for recycling. There are just not that many right now.
Battery life is getting better and if you keep charge between 20% and 80% life is long. Try that with your smartphone.
There was a company called Tesloop that ran a ridesharing service between Las Vegas and San Diego/LA using teslas back in the 2018 time frame. They had a car with 300K miles on the original battery still going strong. That’s why I never understood why people think you’d have to budget to replace a battery in an EV.