Hacker News Reader

Comment by fleventynine | Hacker News Reader

Imagine a world where everyone in the state has an overbuilt solar battery system installed, but still relies on the grid those few times a year with extended cloud cover. It would cost a ton of money to maintain all that (mostly unused) infrastructure, and somebody needs to pay for it...

If you don't want to pay for the convenience of having on-demand power whenever you need it, disconnect from the grid.

Now whether these fees should be income-based is another debate, but some sort of flat connection fee makes a lot of sense in the future...

View on HN

> Imagine a world where everyone in the state has an overbuilt solar battery system installed, but still relies on the grid those few times a year with extended cloud cover. It would cost a ton of money to maintain all that (mostly unused) infrastructure, and somebody needs to pay for it...

You are starting from the "I don't believe in rooftop solar" position and are contriving arguments to support that position. Your argument could apply to _anything_ with variable consumption. What if someone goes to the store once a week and only buys a bottle of wine? They benefit from the convenience of an on-demand grocery store, but if all their customers did this, the store could not exist. Should the store reject this person as a customer? No, the store's fixed costs exist whether or not this particular customer shops there or not. Nothing is to be gained by keeping them away. The same is true with power delivery, those fixed costs exist even if this solar + batteries customer disappears.

> If you don't want to pay for the convenience of having on-demand power whenever you need it, disconnect from the grid.

This is not an argument, just a projection of power. You can say this to non-solar users now.

As it is provisioned for peak demand, the grid will cost roughly the same to maintain as it does today, even if people only use it 10 days a year. In this world, there aren't many options:

1. Charge a fixed fee to everyone hooked up to cover the cost of maintenance and repair (and servicing any bonds).

2. Don't charge a fixed fee, but increase the electricy rate by 36x (365/10) so the overall income is the same as before. This will bankrupt those few folks who can't afford their own solar-battery system (or don't have sunlight reaching their rooftop).

3. Have the government maintain the grid and generation infrastructure, similar to roads. This is very similar to option 1 (especially the means-tested version of #1), except the money is collected via taxes instead of a bill from the utility.

4. Let the grid fail by not maintaining it. Everyone must maintain their own self-generation infrastructure, with no economies of scale.

I don't think options 2 or 4 are wise...

Oh, it's peak demand that is the problem now? Well, those battery users can top off their batteries on off-peak times. Time for you to change the goal posts again.

My argument is that the grid has to be designed to handle the load from cloudy weather that lasts over a week. Nobody can afford a battery system that can last that long. So the rooftop-solar enthusiasts either need to install and maintain a backup gas generator on their property (and disconnect from the grid), or pay their fair portion to maintain the grid so it can provide power to them during such weather.

Goal posts moved as predicted. It’s no longer peak demand. It’s now week long cloudy weather.

I thought it was obvious, but in a world where most people have solar battery setups, peak demand occurs after 2-3 days of cloudy weather, and stays consistently high 24 hours a day until the sun comes out. The rest of the year the grid is pretty much idle.

I don't believe I'm moving any goalposts. From the first paragraph of my original comment:

> Imagine a world where everyone in the state has an overbuilt solar battery system installed, but still relies on the grid those few times a year with extended cloud cover.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com