It’s been three months since we released The Economics of Grid Defection exploring when off-grid solar-plus-battery systems could reach economic parity with retail electric service. These systems could become competitive with retail electric service within the next decade for many commercial customers and for many residential customers in the decade thereafter. Since the release of our results, the industry has been abuzz with follow-on commentary considering the implications for utilities, consumers, and third-party service providers.
Of course, favorable economics do not equate to adoption. Just because customers could defect doesn’t mean they will. For the individual customers actually considering these investments many other factors come into play, such as performance risk, hassle/convenience factor, and simply the plain, easy inertia of continuing to get their power as they always have.
Even so, it’s not that far-fetched to imagine a day when large segments of customers choose to go mostly or even entirely off-grid with clean, quiet, distributed solar-plus-battery systems. In fact, could owning your own power plant become as convenient and practical—if not quite as ubiquitous—as the consumer appliances and electronics already so commonplace that we take them for granted in our daily lives—a refrigerator, a clothes dryer, or a computer?
more >> Why Owning Your Own Power Plant Might Not Be Crazy | Rocky Mountain Institute
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