California crossed a major milestone last year – it has over 1 million solar systems. Primarily these are rooftop installations.
The appetite for rooftop solar has not been slowing down, in fact it’s been increasing in 2020 as more and more homeowners want to take control of their energy production and be less reliant on energy companies.
However, unless you have a battery system, you’re still at the mercy of PG&E when it comes to rolling blackouts or emergency power safety shutoffs.
During this most recent heat wave, some pundits blamed California’s investment in solar energy as a reason for the rolling blackouts (looking at you, Wall Street Journal).
They’re not totally wrong, even though the president of California’s power grid operator, Stephen Berberich, dismissed the criticisms and said renewable energy wasn’t to blame for the outages.
Regardless of who’s to blame, it’s clear that California needs a new approach to energy generation and management in order to thrive through the 2020s and beyond.
One such approach is to allow rooftop solar homeowners to store energy in batteries, and in select moments sell that energy back to the power grid for a premium price.
“It takes the Flex Alert and puts it on speed”, said Bernadette Del Chairo, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, a trade group. “It’s not just, ‘Turn off your lights and set your thermostate to 78’. It’s do those things and give us 5 kilowatt-hours from your batter in your garage. And we’ll pay you for it”
While battery technology has remained lackluster in quality and prohibitively expensive for some homeowners, it is expected to improve significantly in the next 5 years.
For California, home solar and battery storage may become a key piece of keeping the lights on for years to come.