coming soon to a theater near you?

I know what I would do in that situation. Disconnect from the grid &/or block the panels from receiving light when I didn't need the power. They can take their new taxes & ... well, you know the rest.

First they hand out taxpayer dollars as incentives for home owners to install solar panels, then, when the amount of energy being produced is on the threshold of overwhelming the power grid itself, they tax the taxpayer who's solar panels were incentivized to pay for the upgrades to the grid.  As always, the utility comes out on top.

Permie people are smart.  

They didn't hook up the solar panels to a grid system that way the tax man doesn't know about them.

It is the people who tie their panels into a grid system that he is looking for..

Mike Barkley wrote:I know what I would do in that situation. Disconnect from the grid &/or block the panels from receiving light when I didn't need the power. They can take their new taxes & ... well, you know the rest.

most of the name brand equipment is already able to divert the solar to either charge batteries or any other load such as a water heater or a dedicated air conditioner. The era of the grid tied system without batteries is drawing to a close.

My issue with that news from Australia is they changed the rules in the middle of the game. If they need x amount of money to recover their costs, fine, but be up front about it from the start.

In 1986 we were quoted $125K to put the power on. We went solar and at that time, it was $10/ watt.  It is now $1.00 per watt.  At the heart of the issue is that most solar is grid connected and when the grid fails so does the home power.  There is a huge cry about the price of batteries.  It is in my mind media and power industry driven.  Tubular lead has a similar profile to lithium at 1/4 the cost.  We are using tubular lead batteries and only have a problem after 5 days overcast.

There is a simple solution of a mini grid or community grid where a number of people agree to power share.  Each puts in a small contribution to maintenance and replacement and receives credits for power in and deductions for power used.  At the end of a set period of time, plusses and minuses are worked out and finances are levelled reverting to zero,  When the system is fully charged, the community inputs are stopped, only recommencing when the available load drops below a preset threshold.  BP Solar is using this in remote Australian communities because it is way cheaper than running poles and wire, particularly after bush fires and floods.

Getting off the grid is doable but I think if this happened on a wide scale, the Government would jump in to change the rules in favour of the energy providers.

Good information about microgrids from our national broadcaster: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-08-22/are-all-renewable-microgrids-the-future-for-regional-australia/102732654

 
 

That sounds like an excellent solution Paul. As David said earlier there are excellent hybrid systems available.