That's nonsense. Lots of electricity users use more power on their property than decentralized power sources like solar could ever hope to provide economically.
Peak sunlight is only ~1000W/m², and even the most exotic solar panels are at best 45% efficient. And obviously, production is a lot less taking daylight and weather into account.
You're always going to need a grid if you want an industrial economy.
There are no low energy use, prosperous countries…we need more energy not less…much more
I am not sure where that data is coming from, but it is not what I see. I have tons of friends that use solar for most things. My brother has a full year of credit from the grid because of that. It's not mind-blowing from a monetary perspective, but it is a huge win for decentralization.
They probably overproduce during midday and underproduce all other time.
It's not good for grid stability.
For most places net billing is an absurd subsidy.
The only time it isn't is the very rare places where power costs are dominated by marginal costs, e.g. islands where base load is provided by expensive diesel generators.
Yes, you have friends, who are powering their personal lives – their low density homes – with solar. That doesn't mean much.
I took a look at some stats, and it looks like a typical supermarket in a mild climate uses roughly 1000kWh/year of floor space. Meanwhile, in Ontario, a typical 20% efficient, high efficiency solar panel can produce just 277kWh/year. Parking needs for a supermarket are roughly twice as much parking as m² of floorspace (it is common to put in more).
Even if you covered the entire roof with solar panels, and the parking lot, you'd barely break even on energy in theory. In practice you'd do even worse than that as it's common to go without significant sunlight for days or even weeks.
...and that's just a low density, single story, supermarket! There are so many businesses, and residences, that use way more energy per m² than that.
Doing without an electricity grid is a pipe dream.
Yeah, from a stats standpoint you can make any story you want. I just know the anecdotal stories from friends and colleages that managed to make it work and are quite happy with their choices. Especially because the grid kept fucking the up in the past. For instance, now in Mass we pay 2x for distribution than for the energy itself.
Again, it's not sufficient for peoples' low density homes to be self sufficient to get rid of the electricity grid. You need decentralized power for the entire economy, which is a pipe dream in most places.
I've been to countries that are forced to do that due to incompetence, lack of investment, or in the case of Ukraine , a genocidal invasion. They use a hell of a lot of expensive diesel generators.
E.g. even though South Africa is very sunny,
businesses in the wealthy, white areas supplement their solar panels with diesel generators.
Finally, paying more for the grid than the electricity itself isn't a bad thing. It just means that the market price of power is cheaper than actually distributing it. Lots of commodities are like that: the majority of the cost of gravel, sand, concrete, water, etc. is often transport and distribution.
I am not pitching getting rid of the grid. I am just pitching more freedom for users. The grid will always be there as backup for households that want to truly be free from that system.
Yes exactly, been saying this for years - just cover roofs and anything already concrete like parking lots with solar.
and Peter is missing the trees, for the weeds.
Solar adoption would increase innovation & all the electric use cases he laid out are becoming more efficient as well.
Oh, and actually, reading about this more the 1000kWh/year figure I quoted above is more for hypermarkets, that aren't actually selling mainly food. For a true supermarket that sells mainly food it's more like 1500kWh/year, assuming an efficient centralized refrigerator system.
Actually the efficiency in around 20%.
And then you need batteries...
And then there is weather....
And then there is winter....
It gets really expensive.
Yes, I quoted 45% to show how even with massive technical improvements this is hopeless. You're absolutely correct. In fact, typical solar efficiency for cheap installs is more like 15%, as the 20% panels are a fair bit more expensive.
The theoretical limit for solar panels, assuming a multi-junction solar cell with an infinite number of layers, is only 68.7%
