$.75/gallon gas? Wait for it... /EDIT: COLLAPSE of global oil industry

[BarkingGhostar]

I wonder if he is cashing in before the first true solid state batteries come to market.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The one thing about solar you're forgetting is batteries. While you don't have to have batteries for your home, you do if you are totally off the grid and want electricity once the sun goes down.
Tesla battery life seems pretty damned good...Musk says he's shooting for one million mile battery life...but the environmental costs of those batteries is pretty high...and, should "shit happen," they're expensive to replace.

True but even then they are a one time cost vs fuel that you have to keep adding to the system. Fuel is just stored solar energy. Yeah the batteries go bad after a while but it's not like you need to keep replacing them every month like you would need to keep refueling a large tank. For stationary applications big ass lead acid batteries are best bet still, but you want decent quality ones like Surrette or Trojan that can last 10+ years. Ideally more like 25 if you take good care of them. It has to be flooded acid though, don't even touch VRLA, Gel, AGM etc. You're lucky to get 5 years out of those. Eventually lithium ion will be more affordable. Battery tech is something we need more work on. If all the subsidies that go to oil went towards battery and storage R&D we'd be set. Ideally we need a battery that has higher size/weight density than fuel then even electric planes and boats would be viable. But for buildings and stationary setups it's practically a no brainer if you have the property for it. My current one is too small so can't really go full off grid.

You can also compromise on storage by going with a smaller battery bank, and try to do power heavy activities in the day. It would be a different mentality since now with hydro you try to do all that stuff at night off peak when it's cheaper but with solar since you're not paying for the energy you try to do it in the day when the energy is available.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

One time thing? No battery lasts forever, and most won't last the life of the system, or the home.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Well one time thing in the sense that you're not constantly changing it, like you have to constantly add gas to a generator. Most people update things on their house like siding or windows etc at a certain interval. I guess 1 time thing is the wrong wording, but I just meant that you're not consuming anything to use it and it lasts a significant long time. You pay for it once for it's entire life time.

If you take good care of them they should last a good 10+ years. Ideally 25+ if you oversize the battery bank and never go below 10% DOD.

You need to buy good ones though, from what I've learned. The cheap Canadian Tire batteries I bought for my UPS around 7 years ago are slowly dying on me. They die with shorted cell or other defects. They were not really proper deep cycle ones though, I only realized after I bought the first 2 that they were a starting battery with deep cycle capability (Marine/RV) so I kept buying same ones to match them. I plan to upgrade that setup with some better batteries and the remaining ones will just go in my shed for the solar setup.

Lithium Ion may last longer and if yes that will perhaps make it more viable for solar, though but it's too early to tell for sure. We'll know when Tesla and other EVs have been around for 20+ years to see if they are still at a good capacity. That is a good sample for a worse case scenario too as cars see very bad conditions from very hot to very cold temps, and lot of vibration etc.

Battery tech is something we could use lot of improvements on for sure. Solid state batteries sound good but I feel we need something even better, those will be about double the capacity of lithium ion. We really need something that is like 10x. Essentially we need something that will make fossil fuel 100% make no sense. Why carry around all that weight when a battery has more kwh and is smaller. (if such a tech is discovered) I don't know what governments would do if such high density battery would be discovered though. It would completely kill the economy. It would be a win for green energy though.

 

[Ajay]

One time thing? No battery lasts forever, and most won't last the life of the system, or the home.

The upcoming solid state batteries should improve lifetime, charge time and capacity/kg. But, obviously, nothing lasts forever. The batteries can be reused for sometime in systems that don't require frequent charge/discharge cycles after they are retired from car duty.