Re: One problem for James Micallef
"Nothing strictly wrong with staying on-grid even if you are self-sufficient, as long as you can feed in surplus electricity and get paid for it."
But paid how much? In the UK solar PV anoraks are bleating that they only get 14p/kWh. But 9p of that at least is a pure subsidy, because the wholesale offer price for good quality baseload is around 5p/kWh. If the smug solar bunch were actually paid appropriately for the dreadful profile that solar PV produces (ie centred on the middle of the day and seasonally biased towards the lower demand of summer months) they'd actually be getting around 3p/kWh.
3p/kWh isn't going to pay for much PV or other microgeneration, but because your suggested idea still requires a grid system & operator and some form of centrally despatched power able to meet peak demand in a bad winter, you still incur all the capital and maintenance costs of the current system in addition to your cosy world of house-generation. In practical terms that means that your standing charge becomes £400 a year instead of £60 a year, and your grid purchased units would be around 40p/kWh instead of 13p.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
