The problem with the idea of becoming more independent from the grid is something that the utilities will fight tooth and nail to prevent. They don’t want to lose customers and have them go off the grid. So they want to keep the customers as dependent as possible. Doing it the “cut the cord” way would be fought by lobbyists and a huge amount of dark money. Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to go off the grid too, but the reality is it’s not that easy, it’s hard fighting the utilities.
EVs Can Support Power Grid Reliability & Reduce Costs. Here’s How.
In order to prevent having to curtail excess solar, the customers must have hydrogen systems such as Picea Home Power, Lavo, Gencell, Plug Power, Bloom Energy and others. These will be able to time shift the energy use to much greater than the 4 hours that utility scale BESS does. Other alternative storage is Redox flow batteries which are limited only by the storage tank size. Another is the iron-air batteries that Form Energy are bringing online, which can charge and discharge over 100 hours.
Ideally there will be at least 3 times, but hopefully as much as 6 times the solar and wind capacity that the grid requires. Along with that there should be enough storage to generate sufficient power for a few days or more of the “dunkelflaute” – the dark, windless periods.
