"The average monthly cost of living in the United States for a single adult with two children is $4,820. This adds up to an average annual cost of living of $57,851."
What would the cost of living fall to if energy costs were $0?
What would the cost of living fall to if energy costs were $0?
If household solar and small-scale storage get ridiculously cheap, grid defection may be cheaper than buying large-scale renewable output from the grid, but utility scale solar plants can generate more real output per nominal watt and cost less to build per nominal watt. Unless your local electricity system's history is weird (unneeded grid capacity built in Australia being paid for by households, Energiewende that shifted costs away from big industrial customers and toward individuals in Germany) then grid defection probably won't be the lowest-cost option in the next 5 years.
In most developing countries the grid is the problem, not the production. They often lose more than 50% of the electricity before it gets O the point of use. They also need to make large scale coordinated upfront investments, which i difficult with weak governments.
In a way, solar + cheap storage could become an economic and social democratisation force.
But you might wonder, what about salary? But salary would go to zero as well because you wouldn't need much money since everything is basically free.
The problem will be motivating people to do stuff.
You might expect an additional problem that certain items might be scarce, but the solar system is very large, and with free energy there will be no limit to getting things.
If you think I'm wrong, try this thought experiment - what are the costs of things? To get started ignore salary, and think what do you have to pay for?
Shipping: Free obviously.
Mining: Free since you don't have to spend energy getting stuff out of the ground,
Machines: Free, since they are made of metal and other resources that are in turn free.
All you are left with is assembly and design i.e. wages. But as mentioned, those will go to zero since everything will be so cheap people won't need much money.
(Note, I'm assuming unlimited energy. If you meant limited energy, but it was free, then you have a contradiction since if it's free no one will limit themself. Maybe you could do quotas.)