Originally Posted by
FenceFurniture
I just forget the numbers now, but Germany is producing more Green power than dirty power IIRC, and one of the Euro countries (maybe Germany again) will be totally self-sufficient on Green power much earlier than any other country - somewhere in around 15 or so years, from memory.
And yet here we are, on the sunniest continent of all, building new estates with no solar panels in sight. :doh: That would be a classic example of needing legislation for mandatory panels on every house. Put in some extra subsidies if necessary. The cost of a 7.5kWh array is around $8-10k after rebates, which is pretty small beer in the context of a new house build costing about $350-400k, especially given that these air-con hungry houses will repay that $8-10k within just a few short years and provide virtually free elec for >20 years after that.
Rather than building new coal power stations, or propping up filthy 50 year old ones for another 5 dirty years, wouldn't it be better to put those massive funds into building community-serving batteries. One very large battery complex in each neighbourhood with solar panels everywhere that is viable? It must surely be cheaper to build one large battery complex than one for every house. It would also be better for drain and distribution I would think (low vol consumer's batteries would be somewhat wasted).
Mass production is the way to get prices down. Battery tech is getting very close now.
What am I missing here?
There would have to be the inevitable exemptions for heritage houses and so on, but they are a pretty small percentage.