Sep
21
2016
1

A Society Where Each Home Generates Its Own Electricity

tesla powerwallModern society is quickly progressing towards a trend where producing your own electricity is becoming the norm. Many homes, as well as industries, are already powered at least in part by solar energy. Electricity providers are realizing the economic and marketing benefits of providing their customers with electricity from green sources, such as wind and solar.

With the introduction of products such as Teslamotors Powerwall the ability to generate and store your own electricity is becoming easier to access than ever before.

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The ability to actually store the power you generate has been one of the major hurdles to overcome when it comes to homes generating their own power. Installing solar panels or wind turbines on private properties has been around for some time now. However, without a way to store the generated energy a large percentage of the potential is wasted.

What the ability to store the energy that is generated means is that less of the power is wasted, and you also get what is essentially a backup power system in case of power grid failures.

 

The benefit of generating your own electricity is not only that your power bill is reduced or even abolished, it also opens up the possibility of generating revenue with the power you produce. This is done by sending excess power back into the powergrid and getting paid for it by your electricity provider. Depending on the circumstances you might actually end up earning back the money invested. And of course you are at the same time doing a good deed, since less power needs to be generated by power plants with high environmental impact.

 

If you drive an electric car, generating your own power would even replace the need for fuel. Potentially you can also use the power you generate to heat up your house and possibly even to pump water from your own well. The result is a long term investment that is both economically as well as environmentally sustainable.

 

Equipping your home to generate and store its own power is a fairly expensive investment at this point. But if done right you might end up earning back your investment, all while saving the environment and maybe even making your everyday life more comfortable.

 

With solar cells getting cheaper, wind turbine self-assembly kits, and the emerging ability to store your generated energy, it would seem that we are approaching a society where generating your own electricity is the norm and not the exception. Combined with the fact that electronic devices use ever less power with each generation.

Speculations have even been made that one day central power plants might not even be a necessity anymore. Rather the society itself generates the power and distributes it between homes.

Of course central power generation would not go away completely. That would mean waste energy, rather factories and businesses help generate and distribute electricity and heat.

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What do you think? Is this possible in the near future? Or is the expense of home sized batteries and push from electric companies a too big hurdle to overcome anytime soon?