Are Rooftop Solar Panels and Batteries the Solution to America’s Growing Energy Crisis? Collections of them can act like small power plants. Rooftop systems could theoretically provide almost half of the electricity that residents in many states use over a year.

4 comments

1. My take is that it is, if the cost is no more than 10x the yearly electricity cost.

2. It’s possible but not sure its economically feasible. I’ve got solar that pretty much offsets my electrical usage and the system will pay for itself in about 15 years. I’ve also got battery backup but it doesn’t really help that anything other than to provide backup power in case of power outages.

3. Imo virtual power plants are a good idea, but difficult to implement. There would need to be a unified code that everyone would use. Think of all the manufacturers of inverters each one of them would need to write that functionality into their software. And it will also need some kind of unified backend that each power company uses so you can just point whatever inverter you have to your power company’s system. I dont see anyone doing all of that anytime soon

4. To compensate for bad weather you should call a coal power plant. ‘Hi, guys! We need some power!’. They will answer: ‘Yeah, we’ll be ready in 6 hours’ and hang up the phone. But you need power now. So, you still have to build an expensive backup power plant capable of starting in 2 minutes. That power plant also has construction costs, requires its own maintenance and salaries for workers. Otherwise, there’s a blackout.

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