Originally posted by gonzob
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You are forgetting one small detail - every time someone puts solar on their roof these days, they can easily install enough capacity to charge an electric vehicle independently of the grid (and service stations / fossil fuel companies). Adding cheap batteries means charging can be anytime. Both those technologies are becoming cheaper every quarter. Using the EV batteries at night to run the home may also be an option - also potentially without accessing the grid. So called "EV to grid" is ubiquitous as a term in the US mainly because they tend to use large corporate utilities to do things like that. In Oz, largely due to political inaction / confusion we tend to do it "one rooftop at a time" as citizens with a brain.
This is not pie in the sky - I have a number of friends in the West who do precisely that today. One of them only visits his local service station to check the tyre pressures and has not bought fuel since 2010 (first gen Nissan Leaf). He does over 150Kms per day from the hills down to the flats (CBD) and back up those steep hills in the afternoon when the batteries are partially depleted. His work - a cost accountant - says it all. They are now a three EV family without a conventional car.
FWIW, I will probably join them after I finish my new build in the next few months - I am adding an extra 6Kw of Solar panels to the existing 3 Kw to do precisely that. My only contribution to the grid after that will be to send them power unless the supply charge ripoff (nearly $1 per day) together with the minuscule 7 cents per Kwh I am paid (yet they have the gall to charge me 32 cents per Kwh - how do you like that markup?) by them becomes uneconomic overall - in which case I will go off grid altogether. The other advantage is to actually have 24 / 7 / 365 power which is no longer the case here in Rocky (try 4 blackouts in a typical month, yet our suburb's demand is actually around 20% lower here now compared to two years ago). I already feel I am paying a premium for a "barely fit for purpose" power grid. Recent talk about privatising the WA grid would mean even less is spent on maintenance and prices will undoubtedly increase even more. That may be another tipping point over here, and perhaps in the rest of Oz as well.
Not only NREL USA "National Renewable Energy Labs, Golden, Colorado" (where my ex - wife2 did her PHD whilst we were separating - a set of buildings I know like the back of my hand) know the USA grid will cope, but any Oz scientist in the area will say the same thing about the "national grid" (which excludes WA). I wonder what will happen when the demand for power (roughly level in Oz over the last 5 years, despite the population increase) starts to fall dramatically as the balance tilts more towards self generation here? A few weeks ago some Canberra Pollies were wondering if they should add an extra amount to EV car rego as they were not paying the Gov't fuel tax (about 1/2 our fuel bill is actually gov't taxes) - so someone in the ACT can see what is going down - their revenue and their control.
TampIt


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