no kidding. I just checked my June bill. We used 100 kwh less than last year...and the bill was 10% higher - a net 15% rate increase in a single friggin year!

Speaking of a DC micro grid, a company just got approval for a PoE on steroids setup. 1000 watts / 400 v DC over ethernet (18awg) called Fault Managed Power, and can be installed *without* an electrician.

https://www.panduit.com/en/pro...

this has some good diagrams

https://www.buildings.com/smar...

It's not aimed at existing edge PoE devices but higher power middle hardware that would feed those edge nodes.

regarding rates...we used 10% less power last month than a year ago. yet our bill was 10% higher. A 16% rate increase.

Data centers are here to make that grid stability go byebye.

They are huge loads that auto-trip offline if they sense even minute fluctuations to protect all the computer equipment. The grid isn't designed to handle that. NERC just issued it's highest warning over potential instability b/c these huge loads at multiple data centers will all follow similar patterns and all of a sudden multiple GW loads vanish.

US power rates outside CA are generally quite cheap and makes ROI longer, no argument about that.

Solar + batteries is basically locking in your power rates for 30 years, vs the 10-15% annual increases we're seeing. That makes the ROI shorten fast.

I had a 2003 Civic Hybrid with a battery that lasted 10 years/140k miles - 20 year old tech. Modern stuff is *much* better.

My current 2012 Insight hybrid is going on 14 years/110k miles and *just* starting to show some loss of capability.

https://www.indexbox.io/blog/c...

30 YEAR warranty.

The way I look at it is this.

If you pay $2000 annually for your power. In 10 years that $20,000....probably more like $25,000 with rate increases.

In 30 years, that's $60,000 without rate increases.

$25,000 in solar to reduce your power bill for 30 years vs a guaranteed $60,000 spend is pretty no-brainer to me.

Outside of CA, US power rates are, at least for the moment, pretty cheap on average so that does extend the ROI period probably into 10-15 year territory.

DIY'ing a home sized battery is a great way to have your insurance deny a claim when you have one.

Building codes are still slow to catch up to newer types, but if it's not 'approved'/UL certified etc, something that big and even a small fire risk is gonna punt you out of coverage.

A YT'er put in a system and if it was 25 kwh in size, code said it needed a dedicated sprinkler system...even if the LFP batteries don't have the fire risk of Lithium Ion. So he sized it just under that.

Yet the same code lets you park a 100kwh LIthium Ion car battery in the garage without a sprinkler.

Florida has invented the 'disappearing' insurance company though.

Unlike the MAGA general population, actuaries can do math and are "Peace Out" of the entire state.

If you can even get Home Owners insurance the premiums make solar and batteries look CHEAP.

good news! if the point my post would have been a landmine, you'd still be alive you missed it by so much

The point was that even in its infancy 15 years ago there were fairly reasonable options.

EVs are bigger sure, but tech has advanced considerably in 15 years.

The concept of warehousing should explain it to you.

You can 'store' 100 people in the space of 5-10 trailers. More if you go more than 1-2 floors up.

As long as all that usage is via an in house LLMs sure it's 'free'.

But the 'good' stuff is about to be financially choked out of most pipelines

Except this is laying landmines that will trigger in 20 years.

People will retire and there won't be anybody to replace them with at a macro level....because the "easy" stuff that new college grads used to write won't onboard those new college grads.

For added fun we've made building even marginally decent computers at home 4x as expensive so the 'self taught' route will also produce far fewer people to pull in.

My birthday was the *best* part of each of the last 5 years and I worked on all of them.

So yes I worked the better part of 5 years...

Recently heard the definition:

Batteries - Time machines for electrons

Shaves the peak of excess to lessen the peak of demand - which is literally what a grid will do in the full renewable future.