How can it be cheaper to leave the grid? Won't energy storage be much cheaper if it is done on scale by buy and selling energy as required and letting utility companies figure out energy storage and load balancing?
But because there is so much power being generated, the householder is only paid a fraction of the equivalent price of extracting an equivalent amount of electricity from the grid.
At present those householders have no choice but to put up with that dud deal, as they have no where else to put that excess power. But move on a few years when battery technology starts to take off and battery prices come down, that will change.
When that happens, total household electricity costs will be coming down and they will be one very big step closer to being off grid.
There may come a day where the difference is so small to not matter anymore, but people won't disconnect from a competitively priced grid before that. There are plenty of entities consuming energy during the day, it's just a matter of adapting the generating infrastructure.
Anyway, and answering lumberjack's question, I'm yet to see a competitively priced grid. It's a natural monopoly, normally maintained by either an expensive government bureaucracy, or a private company whose main goal is to extract big rents. At this environment, I'd expect houses to organize into largish units that share batteries, if the government allows, or just get enough batteries for themselves.
> At this environment, I'd expect houses to organize into largish units that share batteries, if the government allows, or just get enough batteries for themselves.
This is exactly what's happening in Hawaii right now. Because power is so expensive due to petroleum used to generate power, it is cheaper to go off the grid entirely with your own batteries than to wait for the utility to approve your grid tied solar system.
I guess when more and more people generate their own power the connection fee will eventually increase while the usage fee decreases. So even if you have an average usage of 0 kWh per month because of solar panels you'll pay the grid just to be your battery to buffer the peaks and give back power at night. And I think that's actually fair. If you don't want that high connection fee you'll need to buy your down battery and disconnect completely.
pipe dream
The majority of the cost of retail electricity is the maintenance of the transmission network (>50%) (poles and wires)[1], with metering/billing being the next highest contributor (<20%). The cost of generation is around 20%.
Many of these householders with solar are paying very little or nothing for their grid connection. Thus they are being subsidised by the non-solar households for their ability to stay grid connected.
Household level batteries could change that scenario if they are good enough to allow complete disconnection from the grid.
If household level batteries are successful, then we will reach a point where it will not be economically viable to maintain the grid. Every house will then need to become self sufficient for electricity generation and storage.
[1] https://www.dews.qld.gov.au/energy-water-home/electricity/pr...
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in Australia that's just not true, since the utility companies have a tendency to "gold plate" those grids.
Here are some detail:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/goldplating-the-power-grid-20...
When governments sold the grid to private enterprise they also allowed them to "gold plate" their systems and pass on the costs to the consumer.
The result was massive increases in electricity prices.
What those utility companies got wrong was thinking the consumer was a captive audience and would put up with those rip off prices.
Those massive increases in electricity prices actually made solar an option, hence the massive addition rate in roof top solar here in Australia.
What those utility companies have got wrong is the genie is now out of the bottle.
Some of those customers are going to be better served by doing something else. As the price of solar and local storage goes down compared to the legacy cost structure of utilities, it can make more sense for more of those customers to leave.