Comments on: Experience Grid Freedom

By: A Real Libertarian

A Real Libertarian — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:03:00 +0000

Pioneers were actually pretty damn collectivist.

Rugged individualism sounds nice and all, but you can’t run a society on pretty words.

By: jonesey

jonesey — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 02:29:00 +0000

Where do these charts get their data? In Oregon, for example, a $10,000 solar array will save you about $200 per year on your utility bill (2% per year), but that’s only if you choose to forgo the federal tax credit, state tax credit, and utility incentives. With those incentives, a $10,000 system will cost more like $2,000, which makes your $200 per year return more like 10%. Roughly. Your mileage may vary, but that’s a lot different from 3.8%.

And that’s just in the first year. With electric rates rising faster than inflation, your return on investment improves every year.

By: Steeple

Steeple — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 00:13:00 +0000

Curious about some of the state pairings. Great IRR for Colorado & NM, but terrible for Utah. Great for Iowa, it not for IL. Is this mostly a function is subsidies at the local level? Would think that utility pricing wouldn’t vary that much for neighboring states, but I don’t know,

By: Gwennedd

Gwennedd — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:12:00 +0000

It would be nice if you could get the stats from Canada too.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 17:11:00 +0000

The chart is good but the hype about “grid freedom” is grossly overdone. It is technically possible to go off-grid, redesigning your house and lifestyle for efficiency and buying a lot of batteries, but at the moment this would be expensive and lowers your rate of return. A normal solar installation still leaves you a customer of the utility for all the hours the sun isn’t shining. From being its serf, you are now its enemy. You will need to join other solar householders to battle it in defence of net metering or a fair value-of-solar tariff. All of which is well worth doing, but rugged pioneer autarky it ain’t. The cry should be “energy democracy”, not “energy independence”.

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:42:00 +0000

Did Mr Burns block out the sun in Idaho?