Comment by volkl48
My comment doesn't imply that at all. We absolutely need more solar, and a lot of it. Just that we don't necessarily need more of it everywhere without making accompanying storage investments. (+ possibly transmission investments).
We shouldn't be overpaying in generous subsidies to homeowners for power mid-day where it's now worth the least.
Early net metering schemes were often basically 1:1. You supply a kWh mid-day where it's not worth much and that's "equal" in value to you drawing a kWh at 18:30, even though the market price of electricity then might be 10x what it was when you earned your "credit" and the grid is far more strained.
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Most regions that already have a decent amount of behind the meter home solar at this point exhibit a strong "duck curve" effect, at least on sunnier days. Mid-day demand is deeply suppressed while solar output is strongest.
Meanwhile, the AM/PM peaks remain and are at times of the day when solar output is very low.
With more storage - solar can help cover those peaks (+ overnight demand). Without, you're not accomplishing all that much by just depressing mid-day loads even further unless you can restructure society to better match it's energy demands to those solar supply curves.
A few illustrations/articles:
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
https://www.iso-ne.com/about/where-we-are-going/solar-power-... (New England).
> We absolutely need more solar, and a lot of it. Just that we don't necessarily need more of it everywhere without making accompanying storage investments. (+ possibly transmission investments).
Maybe not literally everywhere, but almost everywhere would continue to benefit from more solar even if it's lacking storage. Despite the duck curve.
> We shouldn't be overpaying in generous subsidies to homeowners for power mid-day where it's now worth the least.
It's a bad way to do a renewable subsidy, but we do want some kind of subsidy and flawed is usually better than nothing. I'd prefer replacing the subsidies with a carbox tax but that is not going to happen.