You may not be able to afford to buy all of your electricity

[hayden55]

You guys would be surprised. Most power plants use solar collection over solar panels as they are more viable than panels. 40% efficiency vs 20%. Also, they can be added as an addition to the more common ngcc power plants here in the South. The heat exchangers back and forth make things more compatible. But give it time. In 2008 how many people did you even know that ran off solar? I mean even youtube was kind of bare.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by redneck

.
Just enact a “Sun Tax”...

If you feed solar energy into the grid, you're paying a "pro-sumer" tax in my part of Belgium ...

Trouble is, many people with solar installations still use up a lot of, or even most electricity when they ain't producing much if any themselves.

We have rewinding mechanical metering, so they want it to show no net use - anything extra you put into the grid, you "lose" - so many use extra electric heaters in winter .
That electricity still has to be generated somehow ...

[redpoint5]

The market solution to that problem is to net meter the market price of electricity at the time of use.

[RedDevil]

My energy company (GreenChoice) actively promotes home PV installations, even to the point where it works against them.
I have a double day/night meter, and they promise they will pay me high rate (tax and transport costs inclusive) for net overproduction on the day total while they charge me low rate for the night total.
I could theoretically have a small overall shortage and still get paid...!
Only if I have a total surplus will that part be credited at high rate but excluding tax and transport. As tax and transport make up most of the cost, that's significant.

[freebeard]

I'll just drop this here:
Robots Built a House That Generates More Energy Than It Needs

dwell.com:The DFAB House is the world’s first home designed, planned, and built with mainly digital processes—and it's entirely powered by the sun.

DFAB HOUSE – DFAB HOUSE

Within DFAB HOUSE, for the first time, six novel digital building processes have been transferred from research to architectural application: the In situ Fabricator, a versatile autonomous on-site construction robot; Mesh Mould, a formwork-free, robotic process for steel-reinforced concrete structures; Smart Dynamic Casting, an automated concrete slip-forming process; Smart Slab, integrated ceiling slabs fabricated with 3D-printed formwork; and Spatial Timber Assemblies, a robotically fabricated timber structure. Combining these novel processes in one built object makes it possible to ....

edit: I like this a lot.



The curved wall supports the ceiling panels, made from a 3D printed mold. The window mullions are bespoke as well.

[redpoint5]

Automation/robotics will drive the cost of nearly anything near zero. If/when robots are able to make themselves and repair themselves, and handle more complex tasks, the only limit to what can be built would be mineral resources.

Consider a solar, wind or (fill in the blank) factory that is nearly 100% automated. Resources are mined by robots, delivered to factories by robots, turned into solar panels by robots, and installed by robots. The cost of anything is related to human time consumption. Robot time is worth almost nothing, especially if they were built and maintained by other robots.

I don't know if we'll get there any time in the next century. In some ways robotics has exploded, but in other ways still has a lot of obstacles to overcome. AI/machine learning is a difficult nut to crack.

[freebeard]

[ibid]

At this point, the robot hold the part for a human to fasten. AI will drive design to the geodesic solution. A hexagonal rotating jig so the human doesn't have to climb a ladder. Boston Dynamics robots can do backflips now.

I don't know if we'll get there any time in the next century.

I think we'll be there in the next decade. Proof of concept in the next year.

[redpoint5]

I'm surprised we still send people on top of roofs to install asphalt shingles. Seems that repetitive and easy to calculate job would be an ideal thing to automate.

I've thought designing an asphalt roof laying robot would be a fun project.

The asphalt should come in a spool, not in squares (rectangles). Simply roll out, cut at the ends, overlap at the correct distance, and repeat.

Actually, why are nails used at all? Asphalt should be epoxied to the roof.

[oil pan 4]

A roofing robot would be great.
Roofing sucks and roofers are either completely stupid or take every incorrect short cut possible.

[freebeard]

A robot Tesla Roof installer. With tile delivery drones.