from Hacker News

California off to a strong clean electricity start with solar up 33.8%

by martinpw on 2/22/25, 4:12 AM with 4 comments

  • by dlcarrier on 2/22/25, 6:41 AM

    I'm currently using solar panels and a battery to get power completely off grid. When I had power service, it cost $30+/mo just to connect to the grid which, on average, was half of my power bill. Grid-connected solar panels could only cut my bill in half, but going off grid completely eliminated it.

    The more people that have solar power, the more the utility has to increase the grid connection charge. The higher it gets, the more likely customers are too get a big enough battery and go completely off grid, requiring even higher grid connection charges.

    Eventually there won't be enough customers left to pay for the grid, and the whole market will have to go through a lot of turmoil to end up with something that serves major power users with a probably more-direct connection to power generators. Either that, or we'll implement some kind of protectionist regulation and end up with something much less efficient.

  • by toomuchtodo on 2/22/25, 4:22 AM