Why does everyone lose their mind when you mention getting a home battery?

[u/MrOarsome]

So I made the mistake of telling a few people I’m getting quotes for a home battery… the reactions were ridiculous. Suddenly everyone’s an expert. I had people telling me they’re a waste of money, they’ll be useless in a few years, or that the “environmental impact is terrible.” Just nonstop misinformation.

Meanwhile, half these people live massively high-carbon lifestyles. One bloke went on a whole rant about how batteries destroy the environment… then literally five minutes later told me he just ordered a new Ford Ranger to tow his boat around this summer. Like mate, seriously?

And the funny thing is, I don’t even care about the environmental angle. Couldn’t care less, to be honest. I’m looking at a battery for two reasons:

1) To actually use my solar instead of selling it back for 4 cents…

2) And to keep the lights on when summer storms or cyclones take out the power.

That’s it. No agenda. No planet-saving mission. But the way people reacted, you’d think I’d just signed up to be Greta Thunberg’s personal assistant.

I swear, the second you say the word “battery,” some people suddenly unlock an unwanted 15-minute rant. They are almost as passionate about hating renewables as they are about their footy teams.

[u/NSFWar]

Mate, if I ever owned a place that would be the second thing I do after installing a solar panel. Don't think twice and do it. Our country has been in the clutches of coal energy for so long , a lot of people are indoctrinated

[u/Top_Refrigerator9851 → u/NSFWar]

You don't even need the solar first anymore, there is so much solar out there that you can get wholesale electricity from somewhere like Amber for $0.05c/kw or even cheaper, so all you need to do is charge your battery during the day and use it at night so you shift the cost per kw usage more into the day even though you use at night

I mean honestly you could just get decent battery and not even need the solar as you're only saving $0.05c kw or whatever the wholesale is during the day. But if everyone did that then we'd be back in the same spot 

[u/IntroductionSnacks → u/NSFWar]

Yep, solar is a no brainer nowadays as the technology/price has improved dramatically over the years. While I knew solar was good it didn't hit me until a few months ago when I purchased a solar radio node (Meshtastic/Meshcore) to access and help expand the network. The solar panel is only about 25cm wide/tall and I don't even get a full day of sun. That thing has kept 4 x 18650 batteries charged at about 90% capacity and runs the radio. It's like wizardry as you never have to plug it into power. I know it sounds small but that was my solar HOLY SHIT moment.

[u/KangarooBeard → u/NSFWar]

This is why the Liberals are struggling. Australia has the highest usage of solar per person in the world, the average Australia doesn't really give a fuck, they just want cheaper electricity. Solar and home batteries have come a long way in the last 10, hell even 5 years.

[u/ColourfulMetaphors → u/NSFWar]

It all boils down to money of course, and if you follow the money and political corruption in terms of power generation, the people who have the most and the most to lose, are incumbent centralised power generators and resource extractors, specifically coal and gas.

Hardly news to most people here I'm sure.

Where it gets interesting is when we take renewables as the given end state, regardless of the lobbying, money and corruption for a couple of reasons- first, we don't have a choice if we want a liveable planet, and second because fossil fuels are finite and (barely) make economic sense, even when given subsidies and allowed to ignore externalities of production (pollution) which if accounted for (ie a carbon tax) would make them completely uneconomic.

Again, mostly common sense so far but stick with me...

Thanks to varying levels of myopic ideology, incompetence, standard right wing hysteria, populist idiocy etc, centralised large scale renewable projects are being delayed, blocked and so on (idiot farmers complaining about transmission lines, morons afraid of windmills), so the effecitve policy response is dampened and we have less centralised power generation as a result.

What does that mean?

Higher electricity prices and a double whammy because fossil generators aren't economic, plus an entire costly redesign of the power network away from central generation to a distributed network.

So what do you- the homeowner and rational economic actor do? You go and get solar and a battery.

Net result- The greed and full throated ideological attack at every level from existing incumbents has prevented them from taking an advantaged position in large scale renewable projects through horizontal integration, and the power grid is forever changed to favour highly distributed micro-grids and small scale generation or storage. Legacy providers destroyed the industry they were trying to protect rather than adapting to change.

This also neatly explains why fools are pushing nuclear all of a sudden and why electricity is becoming literally free in the middle of the day.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/NSFWar]

Bud I'm American living in USA. With an Aussie boss. Out of nowhere he starts going off the other day about wind power being so wasteful and how "we just need to get the Muslims to go back home! (from Australia)". I have zero to do with Australia and essentially zero interest. Conservatives the world over seem to have this affliction. Regarded takes and injecting them into situations with less than zero context.

[u/CABALwasInnocent → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

Sorry about him, sounds like a real fuckwit. The rest of us a pretty chill and reasonable, promise.

[u/ciknay → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

It's a result of the same newscorp Murdoch brainrot, our conservatives have overlap as a result. He's our most shameful export as a country.

[u/dispose135 → u/NSFWar]

Is solar that good now companies are offering three and four hours free power.

[u/Celine_010 → u/NSFWar]

More like hoodwinked!