At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your statement is appears to be wrong that they only want to sell their own power. While the majority is their own, it looks like 35%ish is independently generated.
They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it, and since they can't control the nodes - the power from solar panels on homes is less valuable than that from larger independent producers since it costs more to control a distributed system. I'm sure they would buy it back, but people will be very angry about what they're willing to pay.
People are also free to get batteries if they don't like what the market prices are for buying electricity.
> I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the utility companies have a vested interest in not solving.
They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that people will complain and it's not worth it. They probably come out ahead by not solving that problem, I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries. That's really what they're trying to avoid - there is nothing preventing people from going completely off grid, they just don't want to buy their own batteries.
>At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your statement is completely false that they only want to sell their own power.
They're not doing that because they want to.
>They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it
They don't want to buy power at all. Certainly not if they have existing capacity that they would rather use. Definitely not if it is a future threat to their bottom line.
>People are also free to get batteries
Batteries are a much more inefficient way of using power than selling it to your neighbor.
>They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that people will complain and it's not worth it.
Let's not pretend they're not solving the problem for our benefit. This is about their profits.
>I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries.
Because they are a monopoly and a utility. We mandate they solve problems because otherwise they will just milk their monopoly for all its worth and the only party that benefits from that is them.
They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it, and since they can't control the nodes - the power from solar panels on homes is less valuable than that from larger independent producers since it costs more to control a distributed system. I'm sure they would buy it back, but people will be very angry about what they're willing to pay.
People are also free to get batteries if they don't like what the market prices are for buying electricity.
> I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the utility companies have a vested interest in not solving.
They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that people will complain and it's not worth it. They probably come out ahead by not solving that problem, I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries. That's really what they're trying to avoid - there is nothing preventing people from going completely off grid, they just don't want to buy their own batteries.