this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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They are a really good option for places without a good grid. Having some electricty makes your life so much better. You can already find solar panels in slums and nomads use them a lot. That makes sense. Other then that it is a decent way of adding a lot of solar panels to buildings, instead of large solar farms covering up valueable land. Having a decentralized grid has its advantages and being somewhat independend from the national grid also has its merits. However it is more expensive then solar farms and other large installations as economies of scale do not apply. Batteries in case of no or a bad grid are okay, but for a properly working grid they are just too small. However what makes sense is to use batteries you have at home anyway smartly. Charging your electric vehicle at the right time for example makes a lot of sense. In a way heat pumps and freezers heating up or cooling down more, when electricity is cheap is also a good idea. However purpose build electricity storage at home is wastefull, as just by it size a national grid will have much smother consumption and more different electricty source in more place to require significantly less storage. In theory it is always windy or sunny somewhere in the world, so a global grid, might not need much storage at all.