Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Grid Defection Will Make More Sense if Net Metering is Compromised


Going Off-Grid in the City
1. Net zero homes are usually all-electric, and already are off the natural gas grid.
2. Misguided utilities and PUCs may ruin net metering. This makes it desirable to go off grid if your climate is sunny enough.
3. Batteries can provide daily backup.
4. A propane generator is currently the most logical off-grid backup electric source for long sunless periods.
5. If your climate isn't sunny enough, or if propane prices increase too much, then you may want to get back ON the natural gas grid.  You'd do this to minimize your backup electricity costs during cloudy winter months by using an automatic natural gas powered generator.
A comment about home design:
An off-grid house needs a much steeper tilt angle for the PV panels, to produce more in the winter and not over-produce in summer. This has another benefit of shedding snow better.

1 comment:

  1. This is really good advice. I have done my part to relay it to grid people at Bonneville Power Administration, in comment to a post on their Conduit web site:
    https://conduitnw.org/Pages/Weblink.aspx?rid=1144.

    Now, I wonder if I can make this work in my life where, until now, I have thought a PV array not relevant, not affordable. I sure wasn't going to let someone put an array on my house, for service to the grid.

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