Innovator Tesla’s Powerwall home energy battery storage systems made a big splash a few weeks ago, promising a win-win exchange of power between homes and utilities. The trick was to develop batteries that could be recharged repeatedly for years and store up enough of a charge to power the energy-needs of a home for an acceptable length of hours before it would need to be replenished.
Solar power–like wind–is fine for what it is as a net energy and cost saver. Where solar–again, like windfalls short is that, yes, it’s renewable, but it’s also intermittent. Importantly, when a home or a community is capable of feeding power to the grid, and when it needs to draw from the grid is a factor of nature, and therefore uncontrollable, and therefore, inefficient.
