A Solar Boom So Successful, It's Been Halted
The top comment from u/theysayso on the same Reddit thread seems to put things in a good perspective:Other posters have already noted that you can still have the solar panels, you're just not going to get paid for net metering. What people typically want is the best of both worlds, to charge onto the grid when the produce more than they use (and get paid for it) and have the grid available to supply power when they generate less than they use. But maintaining the grid also costs money. If all your ratepayers split, it makes it more expensive for those "left behind". Who gets left behind? Typically people with less money, that can't afford the systems in the first place, apartment dwellers, etc. The other noted challenge are battery systems. You can go completely off the grid but installing the batteries is WAY more expensive, takes and takes up a lot of space. The technology is disruptive, which the article really didn't go in to. For PV to push electrons onto the grid it needs to be at a greater potential. So if your local grid is 120v the PV needs to adjust to 120.1v. Then your neighbor installs one, and this her/his neighbor. If you're on a long radial line the voltage at the head end might be 126 just to get it to be 118 at the tail end. Normally a utility will install capacitor banks to adjust the voltage. Now you have PV going in everywhere totally screwing with the voltage so it becomes a bit of a grid management challenge. You need to know where all that is going in, what its rate of power is at any given moment (clouds/rains suddenly everything changes and the utility has to compensate). So yeah, a sticky problem that could get out of hand pretty quickly.http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1tey5l/a_solar_b...credit: http://www.reddit.com/user/theysayso