Solar farming

[harm_less]

Quite timely that this has popped up in my Twitter feed: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/nsw-...dy-mb2928/
Oh for a government here to actually realise the potential of getting distributed generation onboard for addressing grid demand.

I think the government will be forced to do something, was just watching the news last night and it seems that Transpower will be forced to invest heavily into upgrading the ageing grid infrastructure.
Only problem is the costs that will be passed onto the consumers.
One more incentive to upgrade to solar anyway i guess.

What we are seeing here is Transpower signing their own death warrant in incentivising consumers to upgrade their distributed generation installations to the point that they can disconnect from the grid.

Transpower's raising lines/transmission charges impact those of us with our own generation because even though our importation of grid supplied electricity can be minimised or even overtaken by self supply the daily cost of being connected to the grid is draconian and only escaped by earning credit from 'excess' generation to pay these fixed charges. As battery storage gets increasingly cheaper, with V2G looming on the horizon, the strategy of being totally self sufficient becomes increasinly attractive and economically viable.

This scenario is generally referred to as the 'utility death spiral' whereby those consumers that are able to will jump ship to off grid systems while those that are less able to make this economic hurdle will be trapped into paying an ever greater individual burden in maintaining grid infrastructure. Over time more and more power users will escape the continual increase in electricity costs in favour of self supply and so the spiral continues.

The sad thing is that distributed generation and utilisation of domestic storage ability can actually be used to lessen reliance on long distance transmission, as well as upgrading of generation to cope with demand peak situations. A recent interview on Jesse Mulligan's RNZ show of an UIT lecturer led me to think that such strategising isn't even yet on their radar.