Electricity in Alberta today

[Hamloc]

Those are great points. If you purchase a kWh from the grid it's $0.20/kWh. If you supply the grid with a kWh you're paid $0.07. The reason I don't like off grid is that any excess generation is completely useless and you will not get paid for it.

There is still labour and other materials involved (steel, copper, aluminum) that have likely gone up as much as solar modules have gone down. I still think that the best value of solar today is putting it into an EV.

So using solar power to charge an EV. Most people use their cars during the day. Solar power is generated during the day not at night. So how do you propose that the average worker who works during the day charge his car at work? Will every business have to install chargers run by solar to charge their cars for the workers?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

So relying on someone else to mine and burn coal for power and then send it down a transmission line to your house is more reliable than a properly designed off grid solar system?

If reliability is the goal, and money is no object, then the obvious choice is off-grid solar with enough storage. My next door neighbor installs these very systems on remote well sites. They install 3 months of battery storage. The economics work since they are using milliamps to run vfd pumps for chemical injection only.

I believe we did the math for running a farm or household off of the same system with three months worth of storage. Does anyone remember how many zeros were in that cost estimate?