The future of the electricity grid
An article in Business Spectator outlines the virtues of a connected electricity grid suggesting that, despite what you might think, pooling the energy needs of many houses results in lower electricity production due to sporadic demand. Contrary to most conceptions, many houses don’t achieve peak electricity usage during the hottest summer days when air conditioning is most appealing. It’s not too difficult to imagine a household that doesn’t have air conditioning but uses electric heating resulting in a displacement of peak electricity demand into the colder months.
As further evidence they offer a graph suggesting that by pooling electricity demand, these fluctuations are smoothed out requiring less overall energy production to meet the requirements of all consumers across an energy grid.
With a reduction of roughly a third of kWs required to meet demand, sharing electricity rather than “going solo” seems to be a clear winner. The rhetoric that opens the article now seems trivial:
Angry at your electricity company? / Sick of them constantly hiking up prices for energy you consume while paying you peanuts for power you export to the grid? / Want to shove it to them by installing a battery system and disconnect from the grid altogether?
Quizzical, open ended statements constructed to dissuade readers from the benefits of solar panels illustrate the author’s intent. “What if I told you that even if solar system prices halved and battery prices plummeted, it would still be better if you weren’t to disconnect from the grid.” (It’s worth pointing out that in the last five years or so solar system prices have halved and battery prices have plummeted.) Most solar panels investors are still connected to the grid, but it’s clear that shrinking tariffs will lead to higher uptake in battery storage for solar energy ensuring it can be utilised during the evening hours.
It’s difficult to scrutinise the graph beyond the figures shown, however it doesn’t seem to address any of the concerns mentioned in the opening of the article. “Going solo” may require more overall electricity to be produced, but it’s not clear from the graph that installing solar panels will reduce electricity bills and benefit the environment.
Installing a solar power system (with or without a battery backup system) reduces energy required from the grid and has one major advantage. It’s cheap. Free, in fact. Figures from the Australian PV Institute proved that without the contribution of solar power this summer we would have set a new record for energy consumed from the grid, a record that is set – not surprisingly – during the hottest part of the year. Apart from saving individuals money, a factor not acknowledged by the article, solar panels generate free electricity that doesn’t pollute the atmosphere.
Let’s consider also, that a lot of solar power systems are generating more electricity than is being consumed at any given time, meaning that electricity that is generated by solar panels are contributing to neighboring houses. Again, that’s electricity that is generated for free with zero pollutants that another electricity customer is utilising and being charged full whack by an electricity company.
Let’s revisit the opening statements:
Angry at your electricity company? / Sick of them constantly hiking up prices for energy you consume while paying you peanuts for power you export to the grid? / Want to shove it to them by installing a battery system and disconnect from the grid altogether?
It’s not surprising that we hear more and more customers telling us exactly this. To have a clear picture of the impact of “going solo”, perhaps another graph is needed – one that shows the kW required versus tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions created. It would be interesting to see where that gray “going solo” line goes in that scenario.
