I recently got a solar system and came to the conclusion that if you can sell power back to the grid (not everyone can) for some reasonable percentage of what it costs to buy it, then it will always be worth it to be connected (assuming you already are).
Quite simply, if you have enough solar capacity to get you through the winter (no house is going to have months of battery storage), then you will always be creating far more than you need in the summer. Selling this excess will easily cover any costs associated to being on the grid.
Also at current prices batteries are good for backup power only, it’s always cheaper to sell excess power to the grid in the day and buy it back at night than it is to have battery capacity to get through the night. I worked out it would take 40 years for our battery to pay for itself (assuming the battery kept a constant battery capacity for 40 years…) but less than 10 years for the rest of the system to pay for itself.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 54 minutes ago
We can’t, but we can do net metering, meaning we can offset costs but not get paid. So the best investment is to pay nothing through Dec. 31 and keep costs manageable at the start of the year (net metering ends with the calendar year).
Dave@lemmy.nz 9 minutes ago
Net metering is potentially better, as you are effectively getting free night usage based ob day generation. My setup pays me, but I get paid 20c pwr Kw and pay about 30c to buy, so there’s a 10c difference. Just as long as whatever you lose on 31st Dec is not too high, you’d be better off than me.