Let me start with a graph on the price of solar:

The price of solar is finally LOWER than the cost of electricity from the local utility!

You will save more by installing solar now (and actually buying it, NOT leasing your panels) as opposed to waiting for prices to go down another 2%.

I’d rather pay down the balance on my panels each month, compared to sending my monthly $200 to the local utility where my money is GONE FOREVER.

My electricity is still linked to the local utility, during the day my panels will generate power for my home, any excess goes back to the grid for a 1 for 1 credit, at night the utility powers my home. Even on cloudy days my panels will generate power, and my solar is seamlessly blended with power from the electric company.

One question I get all the time is: “Why don’t you get a battery pack and totally go off grid?” There are a couple reasons for NOT going off-grid in 2017, one being the extra cost, but the main reason is the current level of battery technology on the market.

Even the longest range electric cars can only go about 280 miles on a single charge. Most cell phones can only hold a 2 day charge… most laptops 16 to 24 hours… all three use  lithium ion batteries.

There are many new battery technologies in development right now, from solid state lithium ion to carbon nanotube to graphene batteries.

Here is my prediction, based on watching and studying green tech over the last 2 decades:  A new battery technology will hit the market by 2021 that is LESS expensive yet stores far more energy than lithium ion technology. I don’t know WHICH new tech will win, but whatever makes it to market will represent a leap forward from current energy storage.

You’ll know the next generation of batteries has arrived when this happens:

Your recently upgraded cell phone can hold a 2 week charge.

An affordable electric car enters the market with a 1,000 mile range… and you can charge it from zero juice to 1,000 miles in just a few hours.  

By 2022 a home battery pack will allow you to:

Store 3 to 4 weeks of power.

AND

Disconnect from the local electric company, forever.  

There are billions of dollars being spent in research and development to invent the next generation of affordable energy storage. The company that cracks this code will earn billions in profits.

Oil companies won’t like it, but an electric car with 1,000 miles of range (priced below $25,000) will eliminate the demand for 4 cylinder gas burning commuter cars.

Homeowners with solar (installed now) and equipped with the new generation of batteries (installed in 2022) will leave the electric grid behind.

Of course, there will still be many people who hang on to their $3,000 per year electric bill (with inflation over the next 5 years your bill might even be higher). You’ll still see folks driving cars with huge gas burning engines, even when gas climbs to $4, then $6, then $8 per gallon at the pump.

The blog above this entry will discuss the impact of 100 million electric cars plugged into the grid….

Ben Alexander

April . 2017