Item — HN Reader

> Why have we suddenly decided to DIY our own redundant power sources?

Because government is failing to address these issues?

Back in Trumpistan we had some storms roll through my area the other day. Power has been out for some (not me, thankfully) for a couple of days in a major metro. It was a bad storm and I do not fault the crews who are doing hard work out there repairing everything and it takes time.

But what the hell are you supposed to do when the power goes out and it takes a few days to get turned back on? Well, spend $10,000 - $20,000 and install your own backup power. Is it inefficient? Sure! Does that matter? Absolutely not.

3 comments

Yep. Here in Colorado I installed two powerwalls moderately subsidized by the electricity company. It’s not going to save me meaningful amounts of money even in the long term and I would much rather see energy issues solved at a societal level. But our electricity provider is just unable to reliably keep the lights on through winter and wildfire season, I.e. most of the year. Since installing the batteries a couple years ago our home has stayed warm and lit through two multi-day outages when neighbors have had to go stay in a hotel.

Isn't "subsidized by the electricity company" partially fulfilling "at a societal level"?

It is, yeah. The condition of the subsidy is that up to 60 times a year the electricity company can pull the power from our batteries to cover higher demand. When I said "at a societal level" I was more imagining solar farms and grid level storage though.

I find this seeming opposition (not from you or on this thread train) to installation of backup systems to be a bit befuddling. Battery backup systems, solar roofs/panels, &c. all effectively add excess capacity and resilience to our existing infrastructure. Aside from something like worrying about China's continued dominance in the space I don't really understand the hang up folks seem to have.

Plus in some sense the utilities are regulated by the government but they are private companies. If they're getting out-competed in the market by battery backup systems or other alternatives because of poor performance and high cost, fuck em' they can go out of business. We'll (free market democracies) figure it out.

This isn't a federal government issue in the US. Local and state governments dropped the ball here. No one wants to pay what it costs to bury power lines in most locales, and we have a ton of byzantine regulations that make it slow and expensive to add generation capacity.

What are you going to do when winds rip the solar panels off your roof, or drop a big tree branch on them? Who will you call to repair it? Who will pay for it? How many days will it take? Have fun.

> Who will you call to repair it?

Solar installer. Or DIY if you're handy.

> Who will pay for it?

Homeowner or insurance.

> How many days will it take?

Depends on the availability of installers. Or your skills.

I don't know why this is some gotcha. How many times have you had a storm rip your roof off and take down the entire neighborhood's grid? And if that happened would you still live in your house or find temporary accomodation?

} What are you going to do when winds rip the solar panels off your roof, or drop a big tree branch on them? Who will you call to repair it? Who will pay for it?

How is that different than any other weather related house damage? You'd call your insurance company and a licensed contractor.

Assuming the house is habitable, you'd still have grid power, or if not you'd move temporarily while repairs took place.

The point is, if it's your home solar system, damages and repairs are your problem to manage. Localized grid outages might be more common, but you don't have to lift a finger or pay anything extra to get them repaired. The utility just does it. And they start working immediately, even in the middle of the night or on weekends.

> Localized grid outages might be more common, but you don't have to lift a finger or pay anything extra to get them repaired.

I'm not arguing against the electric grid. In fact, I'm an advocate. The grid has different failure and restoration modes than local generation and storage.

Unless you actually have no grid connection option at all (or it's prohibitively expensive) it makes a great deal of sense to pair a solar+battery system with the grid.

Done smartly, these systems can actually support each other.

> Localized grid outages might be more common, but you don't have to lift a finger or pay anything extra to get them repaired. The utility just does it.

Sounds like a good backup option for resilience!

Could be like my one neighbor who built a whole 8kw rig of panels on a wheeled frame so he can pull it into his garage during storms (Hurricane prone area). Otherwise he just moves it around his yard daily to prevent dead spots in the grass.