Powering a real city with a virtual power plant
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2020
- Residential solar panels and battery backups are becoming more and more popular as efficiency rises and costs sink. This explosion in distributed solar makes a new idea possible: virtual power plants, or a smart network of individual solar panels that can act like a big power plant when electricity is needed most. And as extreme weather threatens many communities, this idea is arriving in the nick of time.
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What power source do you think will see the biggest breakthroughs in the next 20 years?
Whirlpool turbines in toilets
What about using nuclear power cells? Or plutonium isotopes?
Super thin solar panels and battery that can store thousands of watt hours in a small package.
Hard to say. Wind and solar already had their breakthroughs. Fusion is the next big thing on the horizon, but there's the joke that it's always 20 years away.
Improvement in solar tech and the construction of the first fusion plant is going to revolutionize our energy grid.
But in the long term, a Dyson swarm is next to best power source.
just say the word *decentralized* already
no that's communist
@@radiantsquare007jrdeluxe9 As opposed to our current monopolies and energy cartels that dictate exactly which poor elderly citizens to cut power to, in the middle of Winter.
they also can't say it because then the americans will complain about having to spend _their_ power to support people that don't have panels.
@@slyseal2091 Free medicine flashbacks
@@radiantsquare007jrdeluxe9 actually that's the literal opposite
Whoever had the idea to use SimCity for this explanation... You are a genius. 😃👍👊
I want that mod for SimCity! Ha ha ha!
That's really cool. The game animation made the explanation fun and easy.
yayayayay
South Australia just ran for just over an hour on pure solar energy with household rooftop solar accounting for over 70% and the rest coming from large scale solar farms.
South Australian represent
ok
@Vivin Louis You can also google it...
There's the lithium battery storage site fire 8 months ago too. Tesla system stayed active and the remaining modules didn't ignite. Nice proof of design and robustness.
1:49 - Sounds of exercising for the first time since March 2020 🤣
I can relate to this comment, I'm still staying at home since March 2020
I know the sound well
I wish I could say I was playing it up for the camera... but sadly I wasn't - Cory
@@VergeScience - 🤣🤣🤣 --- at least you got "some" exercise!
Too relatable !
This one of the best contents of distributed energy resources I've ever seen. The Sim City analogy was so on point.
amazing how far Surveillance Capitalism has skewed reality! They even defy the laws of Nature and Thermodynamics because they said so! Amazed Plug A here and B there, all in sim city, and you can turn on the over!
Decentralized power plants. We need this now!
4:40 No! Don't throw out anything in the fridge just yet. Keep the doors closed and you can keep frozen food for 8 hours. Yogurt and cheese and veggies, fruit, will be fine. Just the meats can be dangerous to consume if the fridge goes off for too long.
It depends on the fridge. Friges older than 15-20 years do not have the capabilities to keep the refrigerator cool for longer than 1-2 hours. Newer models are capable to even keep it cool for 12-24 hours, with meat being probably a exception in the 12-24 hour range as it can develop bacteria depending on the food process of it.
@@BigHalfSteps Nothing to do with age. My fridge is over 20 years now and only make more noise than when new freezes everything as it should. If your thermostat is properly adjusted for all compartments, it will keep compressing until it reaches the correct temperature. Unless you have worn and torn seals or rotted insulation that will let the heat in, that would be more a factor.
@@dragonskunkstudio7582 And I had one 15 years ago that had the food spoiled while I was away within 4 hours. And perfectly fine fridge, was 3 years old.
@@BigHalfSteps How much liquids and frozen liquids were in the fridge? If the fridge doesn't have a substantial amount of liquids in each compartment then yes 3-4 hours is all you get. I keep a plastic half gallon or 2 liter container filled with water in both compartments. This makes the fridge work less and keep its temperature sustain longer. Also the temps in each compartment need to be 33F 1C freezer: 0F -18C
Or use your EV and an inverter to run your fridge >~>;
Virtual power plant = RAID 5
Or RAID 6 would be better ;-)
@@TheBleson Oh.. no, thats the worst game ever!
Sustainability is nuanced. To say solar is the perfect solution is niave, but to say solar is not a good solution is moronic.
I agree with your point it is just funny that it comes from a minecraft pic.
I stan fusion.
@@kevinberry7429 I think I have had the same profile pic for 7 years now.
I guess the solution is a mix of options?
@@kevinberry7429 Funny, for me fusion is both naive and moronic at actual date because is not done yet. By the way when the first fusion plant will start pumping in the grid? Did not heard about a date yet. Just vague predictions that get postponed again and again.
As for solar, for many is already a perfect solution. not cheap, but cheaper than gas generators. Sure, at global level solar alone is not a perfect solution, but is a part of the perfect solution.
@@ehombane ua-cam.com/video/gPpYQFtyO98/v-deo.html
As a RE engineer, I can assure that these facts are true. However this technology is still at the prototype phase in most countries, as it redefines completely who is a power producer and consumer and also needs smart technologies for the communication between the VPPs and the utility grid operator. Great job !
Do you mean your an Electrical Engineer or Renewable Energy Engineer?
@@name_not_avail6708 hes a REEEEEE Engineer
I’m kinda surprised about this video, I must say. I live in Belgium and I daily put the energy my solar panels produce and I don’t need back on the grid. In fact, it’s quite common practice here for new(er) homes...
@@name_not_avail6708 I studied Electrical Engineer and now work mostly on power grids and renewable energies
@@gdh9659 I agree with the redefine notion. I got upset with the notion of virtual plant. Hood 3 did not became virtual plant at all. It remained what it was, a hood with a solar generator. A very real, by far not virtual, and not at all almost a plant, just a generator. As an electrical engineer do you agree with my opinion? What output should have an system to qualify as a plant?
Forty years ago the environmental movement took a great interest in renewable energy. This was right after two gas shortages produced by oil embargoes. I was heavily involved with the prospect of solar and wind. Unfortunately the combination of changes in the political environment and technologies not yet ready for prime time, the whole movement declined. I seem to be having a dega vu moment. Maybe this time we will advanced to actual success. Thanks for your efforts.
That is the first I have heard of using the electrical vehicle as a decentralised battery and energy source to feed excess energy into the grid. That is an exciting systemic value add for the future energy mix.
"If you don't have energy, make energy"-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I've always thought we should just put solar on every building (that gets enough light to make sense doing that)
Only thing that’s slowing the transition is battery price. When battery price further drops then nothings going to stop this transition.
It should be mandatory for solar to be on all new buildings at minimum.
Love this! Thanks for going in-depth and the fun SimCity illustration
The economics are only in solars favour, when battery's get cheaper, which they will. There will be nothing holding back this transition
And re building the entire energy grid, to accommodate for solar in residential areas
True, the problem is not with generation, it storage of energy that the headache
i almost started a solar panel cleaning business. wish i had :'(
It's not too late!
@@Kibaoftheleaves you're absolutely right. im busy working 69 hours a week for the almond harvest.
@@holdmybeer nice
@@holdmybeer nice
@@holdmybeer nice
In Europe you have already solarpanels on the roofs of the houses, nice to see, that USA gets in that direction too.
The US has had those for a long time.
Let's get this done!!!
Such a great video. Verge docs are the best.
Still can't wait to have a system like this.
Are these at all practical in regions that get snow for 8+ months each year? Where I live winters are pretty sunny, but roofs are always covered in snow.
And snow is HEAVY. No way those solar panels hold up.
I guess not really that practical though.
Why tf did you live in the cold??
In colder climates, it's more typical to see wind turbines, but I'm reasonably sure that solar can work if they're angled on the position of the sun as it moves through the sky.
Yes, still practical. Since solar modules are dark in color, they heat up when exposed to sunlight. A snow storm might come through and dump a large amount of snow, but as long as your array is several feet above ground, it'll clear itself in about a week. Or, you could go out and brush the snow off yourself, like we have to do for the big satellite dishes.
We looked into solar for our house; but, the break-even was about 10 years and there was not assurance of that or if we would even make a profit after that. Also, there was risk associated with adding the panels. What if we had to sell and by then there was better solar and no one wanted a house with old solar. We need to do more to make distributed power worth it to the home owner.
My state just retired our last coal-fired power plant; and I'm getting solar+battery installed (with utility-backflow) next month. (Sadly, it was originally going to be installed in June, but COVID-related delays in the whole process have delayed it until well past peak-solar-season...)
I'm curious though, do we have a recycling system in place when we inevitably have to replace old panels in 10 or 20 years?
Short answer is yes. In general, solar panel material is recycled to a high degree.
@@StardropSmoothie The existing coal plants also are highly NON-recyclable. Burning coal leaves all the heavy metals and radioactives from the original coal. Since most of the coal being burned now is lower quality, it has more of these "contaminants". So bringing up that sort of "excuse" is a non-starter. Why is it that when it comes to new tech it is always, "What about recycling" and this is completely ignored for old tech?
While the first couple of generations of solar panels were not very recyclable, that has already changed, so your comment is about a decade out of date.
@@StardropSmoothie Solar panels usually have a lifetime of about 25 to 30 yrs. The technology to recycle them, do exists. The thing is that they are made of photovoltaic materials and uses much less plastic. With current technology it is possible to achieve a recycling efficiency of more than 90 percent.
The answer is, yes we can recycle them. However it depends on regulation. If regulation doesn't force their recycling, it will almost always end up in a landfill, it is just cheaper. Ofcourse a costumer can pay a company more to recycle them instead of dumping them, but few would do that.
They will be able to recycle them just like how battery materials are just being recycled recently.
I JUST had this idea a week ago.
I called it _"mesh solar"_ because it was inspired by a mesh network for the internet.
I'm glad someone is trying it out in the real world.
Will make me see if it works or not
Idk how well this works becuase from my knowledge home solar panels are automatically switched off without power from the grid. This is to provent power going backwards and possibly cuasing electrocution of anyone working on the lines to fix them. To do this we would need to change alot. Maybe its possible, let me know.
actually, you only need to have your home inverter automatically disconnect your solar from the grid in an outage. then you can keep using your solar as your home is now isolated. it's the exact same process as what would trip to turn the inverter off entirely, but it trips to disconnect the grid line instead. this is standard for all recent installations.
Excellent presentation of solar alternatives👍🏾
Lol I thought that somehow people came up with a way to draw power from virtual sources. I saw the thumbnail and imagined the little city powering an actual city
That's actually a good idea!!!!
Very insightful 🙌
Batteries can also be used for phase regulation and can help the power system stay efficient. It’s hard to explain here but it’s critical to the power industry.
Great video!!!
That's a great idea, as long as the people decide what to do with the power instead of companies.
Great video, do one about smart grids!
As a Utility Grid Operator, I am keenly interested in this technology and believe that it is inevitable that we will go this route. The lingering question (once all of the programming/infrastructure etc. can be created for this) is how do we ensure reliability? How do we ensure frequency support upon a very large drop in frequency due to a loss of a large portion of the grid? Currently, frequency is maintained by massive rotating machinery in the generators (along with governors etc). If those large heavy pieces of generating equipment are removed, what is left to maintain the inertia to ensure the frequency does not droop too far.
Along with this, how is Spin and Non-Spin reserves maintained to prevent a catastrophic grid failure if a significant source of generation is lost?
These are the lingering hurdles that I hope we are able to overcome...
Orkney in Scotland is looking at doing this with the while Island soon.
The power grid explanation with SimCity at 3:26 is so good! :)
What is the soundtrack starting at 6:51?
I love this info.. I'm a verge superfan..
Nice idealistic video but it's batteries that get in the way. You'd need a battery with the combined size of Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri to make it all work. 😺
Good video.
hydropower is also often used as a peak power source.
This is great explanation of Tesla virtual power plant
Tesla is far from the only company that develops virtual power plants
I live in an area with a small municipal electric system. Is there any resources or companies that want to test products?
U need knowledge, verge has got you covered
In the UK, Scottish Power has recently announced that it is aiming to be completely renewable by 2030. They already have enough wind and solar, but they also have hydro and nuclear, and a new pumped storage facility. They are going to install some large solar farms with onsite storage for the city of Glasgow, and will be putting in storage in the Highlands for the solar and wind up there. In parallel they are partnering with small scale solar and wind to do exactly what this video has described. The future has already arrived, and the roadblock is the legislators and the fossil fuel lobby influencing them. The Scottish Government said to hell with that get on with it. Scottish Power have already done all the research, and have a couple of decades of experience with wind and solar, so they are not starting from scratch. South Australia have major solar and storage, and that has kept the lights on for them.
My entire country has been running off renewable energy for a fair while now It's nice, very rare for a power outage and if we get one it last only a few minutes at most
So which one is better solution sending energy back to grids or Virtual power plants?
The issue i see is islanding. If houses still produce some power and a cable is broken, it’s harder to shut off power to that wire for work and it becomes dangerous for workers to fix downed lines in a timely fashion. Any feature to fix this would be susceptible to hackers and could make the theoretical firesale that much easier. Hard ware switches would be impractical and the tech we have now for shut off prevents any power use or production if the grid is down (well for ours that is...I have no clue of others so feel free to let me know what your generators do in the case of a grid power outage)
You have to considers numbers. This is important. There is a reason why we have centralized power plant and not small electrical unit powered by gas at home. It's way cheaper. In reality the Financial and environmental cost of solar panel + batteries + new grid is so big that it makes more sense to use alternatives that are both cheaper and emitting less CO2.
Don't forget that solar power is not the only at-home solution... there are also smaller wind turbines that can be installed at home.
What happens to old pv solar systems when they age out? I've heard recycling them isn't in place and they can add to our e-waste problem
Depends. In the EU recycling is mandatory. In nations without these regulations, it usually ends up in landfills, which obviously is cheaper.
South Africa is in the process of deploying solar facilities.
I'm a chemical engineering student and my institution focuses most on oil and gas. This video made me hopeful of the world's future but worried of mine.
Oil and gas is staying for a while. Many things still rely on oil and gas such as household appliances, transportation, plastics and gas makes up 30-40% of our power.
Hold on a sec, did they use SCURK to edit the original SC2K tileset to add those solar panels?! 👍
The issue isn't power....the issue is storage of power. At some point, we're going to need to upgrade all homes to have some sort of power bank. Feeding lines with excess energy is inefficient, definitely if the break in the line goes directly to ground, it's totally wasted.
There is no sustainability until battery efficiency loss is addressed,
I used to charge my phone once a day when I bought it 2 yrs ago and now I have to charge it twice a day without much difference in usage...
You guys need to make a video about battery efficiencies and longevity...
We have to add to the limitations list the lifespan of our batteries today. Using the interconected system the batteries of homes and cars will run through their charge and discharge cycles at a much faster rate.
From what I understand in my research renewables seem to be becoming the best solution for future power needs both economically and environmentally. Nuclear fission held that position throughout the 20th century, but now nuclear power costs more to expand and maintain than current renewable alternatives. Nuclear fission might be entirely phased out by the end of the century, as old plants are decommissioned and new plants are no longer built.
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Then you get little terms like "Reimbursement for power supplied during peak usage times only."
Which destroys the argument for this completely, because government and companies seen to be of the impression that they should only collect money and not distribute it, even as form of usage credit.
I bet someone just wanted to play sim city and used this video as an excuse 😂
Alternative title: We must take measures to protect ourselves from alien attacks
So this is an alternative to peaking plants rather than completely replacing central power plants. Make sense.
There’s a lot of people that drive 500 miles a day for work for people that live in San Francisco which is 6 miles x 6 miles that is OK but not for big cities Like Michigan Ohio Minnesota New York etc. etc.
Another advantage to distributed power is transmission loss. Every time you move power from one place to another, you loose some - mostly because it heats the wires. The further the distance you move it, the more you loose. The closer the power generation is to the user, the less you loose.
Very informative 👍🏼
Yes
Here in Germany, there is a lot of solar on homes, but few people own batteries. This has two reasons:
1. Incentives for building solar started back in 2004 (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany), so batteries were much more expensive.
2. We almost never face blackouts and problems with the grid. Our grid spans almost the entire continent (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe), so we can sell excess energy.
wait HOW did you create solar panels in SCURK?
Fantastic. Now use Farming Simulator to demonstrate how CSAs could network and replace "precise-culture" with "permaculture" and how the Mayors of major metropolitan areas could repurpose vacant lots to boost the mesh CSA network.
Technically viable, economically may not viable to lots of countries.
The notion of distributing solar panels and (more importantly) high capacity batteries parallels exactly to how the IT industry has changed in recent years. Redundancy in routes and resources is what makes services on the internet so resilient. With so many natural disasters, civil unrest, and threats from foreign nations, the next logical step to protect ourselves is to get on the solar and wind bandwagon, and solar farms are only a tiny part of the solution. It's becoming more apparent that this is more of an argument for national security concerns, yet the government is nowhere to be found in this discussion. In fact, our current president put a limit on how many solar panels can be imported from China to the US. He said it's in favor of US solar panel manufacturers, which are scarce to begin with. Anyone who is making money off of oil right now has been doing everything they can to slow down the rollout of solar at the home. Power companies are going to push solar farms because people want to see greener energy production, but it's still a very real financial pain for the individual consumer to get solar systems installed, depending on where they live.
I like the idea of using nuclear power to supply the amount of energy that's constantly being used and using solar and batteries as a peacock plant I feel like that would be a lot more economically feasible than just solar and wind
Well there's not much of a problem for virtual power plants right now except very few companies sell energy products and old energy companies are powerful. Anyways, it is inevitable and just a matter of when
4:17 Then use Cities Skylines.
Exactly what I was thinking. Should have partnered with Paradox Interactive on this!
Decentralization FTW!
This is exactly what Tesla virtual power plant is doing today. It quite incredible
You say it can't be done without solar. However it definitely cannot be done without Nuclear power.
What (if any) advance have been made in the use of graphene in solar panels?
It behooves me to think that we put the solar panels 100 miles away in the desert when a) we lose so much energy in transit and b) when we have so many rooftops. Rooftop solar doesn't impact the environment further and if designed properly, can provide shade. If we use a combination of wind solar and fusion (CFS/MIT SPARC) for our energy needs and plant more flora on our planet to sequester the carbon in our atmosphere into the soil (fertilizer is 30% carbon), we can save ourselves from ourselves.
well, utility scale solar is 3-4 times cheaper than rooftop solar. So even with transmission losses it is still preferably in terms of profits unless you can directly use the rooftop solar power before it goes on the grid (though the kind of metering in many US states changes the equation).
THIS! Cover everything in PV and whack batteries in everywhere!
BTW
Germany trialled Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and greatly reduced fossil grid (proportional to the experimental entrants) requirements all whilst still delivering profitable energy and profits for the trial participants.
Germany stopped Renewabel Energy for Privat people with a new law (EEG) - Energycompanys dont like the decentraliced grid.....
City Skylines: *am I a joke to you?*
When it became more mainstream, Tesla’s Auto Bidder will most likely be the default software for controlling the flow of electricity as it is very efficient in finding which house has excess power to sell.
This highly depends. It might be efficient when using their powerwalls, but other batteries? Unlikely. It is more probable something will be used that can be placed with every battery. I think Tesla's autobidder/powerwall will be more like apple, while someone else will create the "android", something that will work with any battery system. It could be smart of Tesla to develop this android system, but on the other hand it would possibly lower battery sales in the long run, since their competitor batteries can also be used. I'd expect it will come more from a company that hasn't got any interests in battery manufacturing, maybe even just the grid operators.
Using solar for "small/simple uses", like street lights? And maybe just for all of the light in houses?
Sorry bad english :p
YES YES YEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
thank you for doing all the heavy lifting , i am going to use this , ... ALOT
change is coming like it or not, and when the shoe drops,
well, ...YOU Know.
When the solar panels go bad what do you do with them how much energy does it take to make solar panels calculate it and you be the judge
So basically batteries everywhere
Myea...how about the Litium, Cobalt resources?
Battery technology is in the stone age, so because of this solar panels have limited potential because are limited by the batteries/acumulators
Hold up, I was on board at first before you said government insensitive. That means solar is not yet efficient as people want you to think.
It is mostly batteries. But yes, small-scale solar (like on roofs) tend to not be profitable if you sell it to the grid at "production prices", ie you don't get taxes, grid costs, ... back. So you get for example you get 4 cents/KWh for the power produce and pay 12cents/kWh when you use from the grid. However there are some things to consider.
1) if you use the solar energy directly yourself, you do safe the grid and taxes costs so in the example you safe 8cents/kWh.
2) There are schemes that let you use the grid as a battery: you produce 1cent worth of solar and put it on te grid, you can buy back 1 cents of power later on, same amount of power for same amount of cost. Now this ofcourse doesn't account for things like grid cost, which still remain, so it still is very much an incentive.
3) batteries. In certain nations/states/regions adding a battery to the system might be cost efficient. However since batteries are still expensive this isn't often the case. If you have metering like in many US states (1 cent power into grid = 1 cent getting from grid), batteries aren't economical, it is just a personal investment to become selfsufficient. However if the total cost of a battery + solar system is lets say 10 cents/kWh, it would be more economical than getting 12cents/kWh from the grid. But this isn't the case yet in many places. But battery costs are coming down, so maybe within 5-10 years it will be economical for everyone, especially as solar-grid incentives dissapear.
Prices used are fictional.
It is efficient for big corporate. But not yet for average consumer. Same theory goes with oil as well ? You gotta trade something
Coal and nuclear have almost always been government-subsidized. Anyway the role of the state is to push things in a direction that's better for its people and the future through things like subsidies. As long as the technology is viable and (en mass) can be made profitable, a little help along the way is exactly the kind of thing we have a government for.
Solar panels. Interesting.
I really want solar panels in my dream house.
Btw informative video 👍
How about harvest the energy from the wind with smaller wind turbine ?
Ummm batteries are expensive, solar panels are cheap. How is distributing expensive batteries to residents efficient? Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply have distributed solar panels (which owners benefit financially even without subsidies) and then leave it to big utility companies to create battery farms - utilizing economies of scale to store it more cheaper cost for dispersion when needed?
Hence my prediction there wont be a substantial uptake of VPPs but there will be many more battery farms out there in near future.
It only exists in current form not because it makes financial sense, but because it is being propped up by government. Most likely we will see some form of localised battery storages established along the transmission network as opposed to in residential houses.
This is mostly true. Battery farm do make more sense to be centralized than solar panel, simple because you can actually stack them lol. Another reason is they have lower life spans (3-10 years vs 25-30 for solar). That being said there are a few problems with this.
If we are talking about having a good portion of our power coming from solar, then we would still have to transmit power to the battery farms, this is a large challenge given are grid is mostly 1-direction. Also its important to remember how inconsistent solar is, so having to transmit power constantly throughout a day (back and forth) to a far away battery farm, you are gonna have a lot of power loss from the distance. This would mostly be solved by having a good sized battery at the residents to store battery and smooth the daily solar curve.
I think battery farms make some sense, but not as a replacement of having onsite batteries. I'm pretty sure not having a battery is completely illogical from a power distribution stand point, the only reason power companies let you do it, is cause they pay very little for the power they buy from you and charge you a large amount more for the power you buy from them. If a city/country wanted to make a smart grid I imagine they would have to be a little smarter/efficient than that.
I agree, grid-connected only inverters are cheaper than grid+battery inverters also. Neighborhood batteries could be better scalable flow-batteries or compressed air batteries that are not available for residential scale.
Yes, but you'd lose the benefit of distributed power. If something happens to the powerline connecting the battery farm and the city, you get power outages. This video was focused on the VPP, so that is what they talked about. In reality there will be a mix, just like there will be a mix of renewables and probably renewables and nuclear.
Corporations buying that many solar panels it should be cheaper as hell for customers to buy panels
Democratize, decentralize with microgrids for resilience. Big Battery, microgrids, V2G to phase out coal or gas peakers.
M̶y̶ solar energy
𝗢𝘂𝗿 solar energy
What was that Tesla battery farm?
I really don't see this going anywhere.. the home owners that cough up 20-30 grand.. want to save energy and reduce bill, not to mention that saved up power could help them when light's out situation.. (that's the primary goal of the owners)
the same as EV cars, they charge so that when they are needed they are ready to go..
check out matt ferrell's video about home batteries, you're not constantly draining them, but if you put them available to the grid you get to soak up peaker plant type money for letting them drain your battery once. then when the peak is over after a few hours, it recharges again before the night is through. also, you can set thresholds to only sell a percentage of the capacity if you want.
@@kaitlyn__L Interesting vid, i just finish watch the matt ferrell vid about the batteries.. i do agree with that vid, and also agree to join for peaker plants plan.. the future is very promising for virtual power plant if used for peaker plants system..
not for power outage or disasters (tbh this is what i though if i buy them, back up power when the time is bad and save money when time is good)
But there's a big flaw in the system, this vid show you when the power flowing to the other cities.. but it didn't tell for how long it can supply ?? on Matt"s vid it shows the discharge when the power plants need to reroute the power.. battery only last 2-3 hours.. (btw thanks for the info for matt's it's very educating)
Back to the subject.. it means the home owner could only use power when the sun is high and when night comes the house can be powered only for 2-3 hours max, instead of the usual 12 hours-ish.. if the disaster take days or weeks even, then owners lose the prime benefit of paying 25 grand.. and that's access to power anytime..
All the problems above can be solved just by putting more batteries and panels.. you know what that means~