From what I’ve read here on HN, a self-sufficient solar setup is expensive enough that it will cost more than being on the grid, even when amortized over the lifespan of the setup.
My house is mostly in the shade, and most of my roof faces north and is steeply sloped, so all I could do is a small solar array of about 2.5kW, which now, at the end of october, is producing about 7kWh per day. This solar array cost about $8000. This feeds into a Tesla PowerWall, which is the cheapest such system available. It can store 13kWh with 89% round trip efficiency. This cost $19,000 installed. Tesla advertises $7,000, but you need a whole lot more ancillary equipment and a lot of wiring complexity. So, we're at $27,000 for something that can produce 260W continuously 24/7 if the grid is out. This isn't very much. It's enough to run the fridge and a LED light or two. I realize I'm limited by my solar panels, and if I had the roof space, I could double my available power for roughly another $3,000. (these prices are pre-30% tax incentive).
A tri-fuel (natural gas, propane, gasoline) hardwired generator would have been a better way to go. I wasn't expecting multi-day outages.
A 2.5kW array will produce 2500W of power when the sun is at 90 degrees to it. This never happens to me, so I get less, 1,200-2,000W output depending on season and time of day. Now, in october, the array at best produces 1,400W, but the graph itself is sinusoidal, so the net power produced is 7kWh. Different units here - kW (which is specific power) verus kWh, which is power used.
So long as you're in a climate where furnace/air conditioning isn't critical, not having electricity for a few days isn't really that big a deal modulo having young kids, elderly, medical issues, etc.
You’re probably giving up AC, you’re probably going to want something like Tesla’s Powerwall. You’re probably not going to be running your washer and dryer during that time. You probably want any desktop computers you have on UPS. You probably want your appliances using as little electricity as possible even during normal operation. You probably don’t want to leave all the lights on.
And I forget the name of this one, but you will need an extra piece of equipment beyond the panels and batteries to actually take your house off the grid. Personally I’m also excited for the possibility of miniature hydrogen generators as a store of power.
> From what I’ve read here on HN, a self-sufficient solar setup is expensive enough that it will cost more than being on the grid, even when amortized over the lifespan of the setup.
That’s true today and I will not dispute it, but expect prices to come down , and with PG&E’s capriciousness, the cost of doing nothing to rise, and installation opportunities to increase. If the utility is going to behave in a capricious manner, then people will respond over time. This can be on a personal level by trying to insulate their own homes from power failures as much as possible, or even at the municipal level where cities allow new utilities to come in and replace or compete with PG&E.
We don’t need PG&E, we just need electricity. People are creative, we’ll find ways to make that happen, even with PG&E fighting tooth and nail against their own marginalization.
In the US, the lowest average home consumes around 17 kWh of electricity a day; the highest uses 42. This usage does not correlate with the hose usage, meaning that most of the power is consumed when the sun is low in the sky or during the night - putting the majority of the load on the Tesla Powerwall.
You'd need at least two Powerwalls to avoid a significant change in lifestyle, plus ~5kW of solar cells to fill those batteries every day (not accounting for cloudy days).
And a change in lifestyle may not even be practical, since most housing constructed in the last few decades was built with the assumption that AC and electric heating are available.
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/how-many-solar-panels-do-i...
I repeatedly emphasized that there wouldn’t be no change in lifestyle or quality of life for the duration of an outage, but it would be doable and will likely become less burdensome in the long term.
Allow me to re-emphasize: people are creative and adaptable. Given the necessity to adapt, people will find ways. People are or have been without power for a couple of days now, they’re angry about it. Very angry, and justifiably so, and I feel confident in saying that the market response to this state of affairs will not be zero.
Ask yourself, which is more reasonable - a couple thousand dollars (or tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars) for an off-grid capable solar setup or a gas generator to account for the dozen or so days of inconvenience? Several cities in the north east suffered almost a month without power (in a much harsher season), and most of their solutions involved purchasing a small gas generator and moving on with their lives.
It's much more likely that the response will be political. PG&E out and install a better caretaker.
Depends where you live. In the northern US, you're absolutely dependent on heat requiring electricity for a number of months during the year. In the south, things get pretty bad, even life threatening, without AC during a number a year. I'll go out on a limb though and say that Northern California (except at higher elevations) does not fall into either of those categories.
Added: I do agree that many newer houses don't optimize well for making effective use of natural light, airflow, etc.
Wouldn't it be easier to build several large scale nuclear plants and offset it with a small amount of renewables than try to make all of our power run off of rechargeable batteries?