this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Here in California, utility companies are "solving" this by instituting extremely high fees for the privilege of connecting your solar power to the grid. If I recall from the last time I ran the numbers, rooftop solar panels no longer make economic sense for the vast majority of residential customers - it costs more money to install me solar panels and pay the monthly connection fees then you'll save by producing energy over the lifetime of the solar panels.
Edit: I just googled and it looks like after public outcry the regulators pulled their really bad fee schedule to replace with a slightly less bad fee schedule. The system works!
Probably the one time in history PG&E tried to fix a problem ahead of time. ๐
Can you at least legally have solar that doesn't put any power into the grid?
From what I know the batteries you need to store your own electricity at home are crazy expensive
Yes, but you don't necessarily need batteries. If you just have a bit of solar, you'll use up all the power it produces as it does that.
I'm sure this has been discussed, but storing your solar energy as potential energy could avoid paying connection fees. Pump some ground water into a raised tank - or hoist heavy objects (large logs)?
Now that I type it out, it seems either dangerous or inefficient or not cost effective. Or all of the above.
Fun to think about, though
There was a company that stacked concrete bricks to store electricity, with the point being that on demand the crane could pick up bricks and gain the energy from dropping them down. Hit all sorts of news sites, never heard of it reaching practical use.
EDIT as noted by another commentor, apparently it did.