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Thanks for the detailed explanation. Can we connect? Email on my profile. I run a non-profit, I teach middle/high-school and college kids about building codes and the first thing I have them do is find out the county building code engineers[1] and ask them to update the code: require 240V outlets in the garage for EV charging. After they know how to do this, the next steps are to require 240V outlet for heat pump water heater, induction stove (solves indoor air pollution), heat pump HVAC. Everything can be electric. Finally, build the house with solar panels on the roof.

Home circuitry, load center need to be redesigned for V2X (vehicle to grid, home, load, etc), plug-in solar and batteries, solar/batteries replacing generators, etc. You seem to have thoughtful ideas about these and it would help to have someone knowledgable articulate how it should be done.

[1]The idea is that they can change the world right now by understanding what they want in their world (clean and free energy) and that they need to ask for those changes because buildings last ~100 years. The lowest hanging fruit is future-proof all construction and have it be ready for incremental changes without needing any labor or permitting work.

by MisterMower4 hours ago|

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Asking kids to push your political goals under the guise of “education” feels pretty icky.

by everdrive16 hours ago|

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Thanks, that's a really useful explanation. It sounds like if you forgo using a battery, then you have to be comfortable scurrying around and unplugging some of your devices. (and as silly as that is, you might aggressively power-cycle a device into oblivion before you manage to get everything unplugged. (most people would probably just not settle that sort of plugging / unplugging.)

by horsawlarway14 hours ago|

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> It sounds like if you forgo using a battery, then you have to be comfortable scurrying around and unplugging some of your devices.

Pretty much. I vaguely remember a couple of "off-grid" devices that try to automate this for you (ex - you can set a priority on each breaker, and as supply dips, they get dropped in order of priority).

But functionally speaking, you just need to install a battery. Frankly - Batteries aren't discussed as much as solar, but the big breaking point we're hitting right now isn't just that solar has gotten incredibly, unimaginably cheap.

It's that BOTH batteries AND solar are getting very, very cheap. And the new generation of batteries are also considerably safer than the original lithium batteries.

Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries (LFP) are ~$60/kWh right now. I can buy them commercially in bulk in the US around ~$80 (pretty much all china production - full stop. Historically, I've bought EVE cells, but I'm now seeing direct BYD branded cells as well).

If sodium-ion can hit the same price points (and odds are looking better and better they'll both hit and then plow past as they bulk up production) then my read is that modern power plants are going to be very, very different.

They'll look a lot more like the connection structures we see for trees - a bunch of connected independent installs that can optionally cooperate as needed. Ex https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260928-a-virtual-power-...