But it is a high concentration of people that take busses to Vegas. While getting to Pomona would be possible, getting much closer to downtown LA gets harder and harder each mile.

The money isn't for something I want or need; it is a service that I think is a poor strategic direction, although there are people it would benefit. The problem with every one of these types of companies is that it becomes cloud-first and it damages local install communities.

Actually, the issue is the same as any other power source: it isn't needed all the time it can produce, so you curtail. It isn't a big deal; arguably it is by design that you have more capacity than you need ~10% of the days of the year. That means another ~30% of the days you will have enough solar.

The real problem though is that grid-scale solar was installed without battery requirements at pre-purchased rates. Rooftop solar should have batteries as well for load leveling, but for the large facilities not having batteries makes it a burden on the balance of the sources.

I was about to make a sizeable contribution to the Open Home Foundation... until I read that they don't want your money. I do not support Nubu Casa, so they aren't going to get my money... and the other "causes" kind of miss the point IMO.

The wall connectors (proper term) do include safety and communications equipment, but the hardware is heavily commoditized. The site infrastructure was what was expensive. Depending on how it was done, each pair of "chargers" needed its own conduit from the panel, and code issues mean that once you have over about 20 conduits you need to space them into multiple conduits. I worked on a project with 100 chargers, and the amount of trenching done was ...sub optimal. You also end up needing to deal with stormwater management because of so much disturbed area.

Today there are a few better options-- simple things like being able to run one conduit for 12 (more expensive) chargers with a code compiant system makes a really big difference.

There are logistics issues to doing it for sure, but if it improves driver performance it might be worth it. Most of the volume required can be freed up after a few deliveries.

As with many early adopter issues, EV chargers weren't put in for private industry especially well. The construction methods and designs didn't really get very refined until recently. Also, for fleet applications, the Tesla/NACS port would have been a big win-- charging at 48A x 277V rather than 40A x 208V dramatically reduces charging time and cost of construction. I know a lot of desing engineers also short changed chargers when installing them ~10 years ago-- designing for an average of 30A was common with the logic that you charged over an 8-hour shift so a diversified load that would give ~200 miles range in a shift.

Today we have better designs that allow for more rapid deployment and lower costs since they are more mass-market and not one-off.

I believe the GP was referring to the waste per MWh. You need to change the operating equation to burn more of the fuel to offset the reduced efficiency due to (IIRC) core poisoning. NuScale specifically has a less uranium-efficient design as I understand. There is also a component of pi*r^3 for reactor waste at end of life.

Specific to data centers, nuclear is perfect; great steady baseload, highly centralized load, intrinsic security perimeter, and plenty of open area nearby. The issue though is lead-time and cost. If one of the SMR companies could get to mass production it would be almost perfect. You even reduce cost by eliminating transmission voltages.

They don't want the legal liability if there is no basis in law for their actions.

Yeah, those systems aren't perfect. If bedrooms are on one system and living spaces on another, the bedrooms can have a higher/lower setpoint during the day, and the other spaces can go higher/lower at night. If (as an example) you are an empty nester, then consider getting a mini-split heat pump for the master bedroom and disabling the central AC for the room.

Really though, if you have an all-electric kitchen and hot tub, you should consider going all heat pump for hot water and HVAC to ditch the gas bill entirely.

I would also look at some of the "DIY" battery options sooner rather than later; signaturesolar.com and diysolarforum.com are useful places to start. You could put in a 15kW/60kWh system for $28k. Or look at the Tesla powerwall.

Temperature reset is going changing setting cooler in heating season (or up in summer) when the space is unoccupied or not temperature critical.

Do you use temperature resets on the HVAC? Have you thought about a heat pump for the hot tub? Is it well insulated? Cover in good condition?

If you have a significant heating load then something gas-fired like a microturbine or linear generator and thermal storage might actually make sense... but it is hard to pull off in California.

Bottom line is that if things have value for you then you bite the bullet...

Good job... where do you live though? That really determines what your options are.

I've got >5,000 square feet, but a climate that is quite moderate/low latitude and currently have 8.3kW of PV. 20kW would give me about 99.5% availability with a 3-day battery. Average daily is 30-35kWh, one EV that does about 150-200 miles a week. (50kWh.) We have mini splits in the bedrooms only, which works fine here. My IT load is ~7kWh/day, and across all the refrigerators and freezers we have another 6kWh. No hot tub or sauna, but that would easily add 15kWh/day.

But, if you use 80-85kWh/day then maybe you should focus on energy efficiency strategies. If that isn't your thing... don't complain about higher energy bills.

At a residential scale, if you don't have wind and solar (and micro-hydro) resources it isn't economically practical. Personally, I intend to double my PV system (which currently annualizes out my net consumption) and add 2.5 days of storage. That should get me to 4 days per year that absolutely require import from the grid. For me it is essentially a science fair project, although I could realistically give power to my neighbors and pull a bit on the days I need to import.

But it really comes down to what you use electricity for. If you don't really need any IT gear beyond a cell phone, don't have a TV, love cold showers in the winter, and don't need to use heat then it isn't that hard to make something work below 40 latitude.