Storage of energy, ie batteries, are definitely where it's at.
The University of South Carolina is heavily invested-in and being funded-by the battery industry to do research into next generation batteries. Some of the new technology is amazing. Lithium has been around for awhile ... we were using lithium batteries in our PRC77s in the 70s. But how far they have come is just amazing.
And now they have all these hydrogen fuel cells coming along ...
But here's the thing Dixie Dude.
Electric companies will still own it all. They are already into wind and solar leasing ... plus, don't forget, they already own most of the hydro rights.
Don't believe for a minute that the utilities are going to sit idly by and die off anything in the near future. It'll be a long long long time before energy is ever controlled solely by the homeowner.
I'm saying this as someone who has $48k in top shelf panels, mounts and trackers on my roof, and another $21k in the field behind the house, right now and another $12k in batteries, inverters and related wiring in a separate building off the house.
Sometimes it's still not enough to run the HVAC during long hot humid spells here in the summertime.
It'll be another century before they get it all worked-out enough to make it affordable to the average homeowner.
In the meantime I predict there will be a cottage industry boom for homemade solar panels from kits that will make it more affordable, and reliable, to some.
So for $70k you have a system that can't meet your max load, and will take 30-40 years to pay off ignoring the cost of repairs and replacement batteries???
Well ... we don't look at it that way.
We have power when others do not.
We had 32 days over 100 heat factor this summer with 17 of those straight up over 100 before figuring humidity. With that, we had to download grid power to bring the batteries back-up three days during peak and for a couple of hours a few times early in the mornings.
Our battery bank should be good for ten years. We're a little over two years into it now and they are still going strong.
What a lot of people do not realize is that, especially here in the sunny South, your batteries experience very little drain and strain during peak hours because the panels provide direct juice to the inverter(s) when the sun is peaking. Do you have to manage what appliances you use and when ... sure you do, but that's okay.
We sell surplus energy back to the power company. Amortized, given a ten year average prior to installing the system and taking into account credits for wattage hours we sell back to the power company, the system easily pays for itself within ten years while allowing us independence from the grid and no power outages, surges, bills to pay or obligation to allow strangers on the property to read the meter.
In essence, we are completely energy independent because we also have a Lister Peter diesel generator that we've used to bring the battery bank back up to full capacity for less than a gallon of diesel. We bought a large surplus propane generator at an auction (local chicken house farmers) that was barely used. He paid nearly $20k .... we bought it for $3,500.00.
We've got solar hot water and, along with a wood stove in the dining room and gas stove and burners in the kitchen we're covered on those fronts.
The wood stove, along with a fireplace, provides our heat on those rare winter days where it gets cold enough to need them in this part of the country.
My next project is going to be putting-in a boiler.
It's all about changing your lifestyle but IMHO it is well worth it. We do without nothing that those on the grid have, yet we're completely independent of the grid unless we choose to burn some credits for whatever reason. Being on a CoOp, our yearly checks from the power company have been impressive.
Edited to add: The tax write-off alone made it worth our while. It was win-win for us all the way around.
