Hurricane Helene rocked the Southeast, claiming at least 200 lives and causing widespread power outages that left a million Americans in the dark even a week later. Without much time to recover from the deadliest hurricane since Katrina, the fifth-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, Hurricane Milton, made landfall just two weeks later with top wind speeds of 180 mph, cutting off power to two million Floridians. To account for the growing intensity of these storms, meteorologists are now proposing a Category 6 level be added.
As extreme weather becomes more common, individuals and businesses are seeking ways to better protect themselves and maintain power during emergencies. Solar-plus-storage offers a reliable and resilient solution. This blog explores how solar and battery storage systems can keep essential services running even when the grid goes down, and provides steps to prepare your home or business for the next major storm.
The price of change is not cheap or easy, it is often costly and painful. Looking back at historical considerations in the path to Solar PV and DERs from homes to businesses, the costs have come down substantially, technology has increased to the point of being able to design a system that has smart BESS with hybrid inverter(s) to allow software available today to format their own programmable, flexible micro-grid for their home or business. around 2005 Solar PV costs for a simple grid tied system (with) subsidies was right at $8/watt installed. Today, simple grid tied solar PV can be had for $2.75/watt installed (without subsidy of the ITC). For $3.50-$3.75/watt today one can get a sizable solar PV array and smart energy storage and if one qualifies for the ITC can see around $2.50/watt installed with the 30% ITC.
Folks need to understand this isn’t a sprint it is a marathon. The simple ROI one uses today to calculate the amount of time it takes to pay for the system in electricity rates, is obfuscated by considerations like, PSPS wildfire grid shutdowns, regular weather events taking the grid down for hours or even days and the wave of political and lobbyist actions leveraging out (net metering) and foisting (net billing) using the wholesale rate of electricity without qualification as to any (value) for a distributed residential system. California is the poster child of block tiered electricity rates, TOU rate spiking usually from 4 PM to 9 PM each day. Solar PV and smart BESS is the system to choose in California. As the U.S. is chasing its Paris Agreement to decarbonization of the grid, the bundled cost of electricity over the next 10 years could look like 45% to 60% higher rates for the same energy use 10 years from now.
The bottom line, folks can justify a $50K to $100K vehicle to drive around in, so how (high) does retail electricity rates have to get before folks will spend say $40K to $75K for a large solar PV array and smart BESS unit to help power their home each day? Will this look like $0.25/kWh…$0.35/kWh…..$0.55/kWh or even $1/kWh before one buys into a solar PV plus storage system.
The likes of German company indielux partnering with EPP solar have created a “plug and play” up to 6kW solar PV/energy storage system that it wants to qualify for use World wide. For many $6K looks more palatable than $60K for a system on any given day. Just sayin’, technology is here, one needs to be able to use it in their daily lives to take care of their daily energy needs. OFF Grid, so yesterday, Grid Agnostic, yeah, that’s the ticket.