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Falling panel prices lead to global solar boom, except for the US

(arstechnica.com)
249 points Jtsummers | 1 comments | 30 Oct 25 16:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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umvi ◴[30 Oct 25 17:03 UTC] No.45762286[source]▶
Has storage been solved yet? In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. In Idaho at least the power companies were able to change the laws so that you get much fewer credits for solar panels on your roof which means they aren't great unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively.

Personally I like the idea of an electric car doubling as a house battery but so far I think only the F-150 lightning is capable of doing that.

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1. namibj ◴[30 Oct 25 18:08 UTC] No.45763118[source]▶
Net metering is unrealistic.

Maybe just force grid-connected solar installations that want credit (any size) and even those that just want to be grid-tied (beyond some small size like maybe 5 panels/2kW worth of MPPT) to use a registering meter that meters net energy for each like 15 min interval (that's the granularity we use in central Europe; I assume the US would have come to a similar choice of granularity), and bills energy according to market rate and appropriately handles connection capacity/transformer capex by like taking a histogram of those individual measurements or otherwise letting a few isolated bursts through while ensuring transformer capacity is paid for by those responsible for the (hypothetical, until it's not) transformer upgrade.