![sunrise](https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ronald_TV.jpg)
The scene in the Brakels’ household last Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning the program Sunrise had a segment on solar power and battery storage. While I am glad whenever popular TV takes the opportunity to educate people on these topics, that wasn’t what happened here. It was the opposite of education, as anyone watching it could easily come away believing the following three things:
1. Battery storage pays for itself.
2. Battery storage cuts CO2 emissions.
3. Rooftop solar needs batteries to be worthwhile.
None of these things are true.
Battery storage does not pay for itself when used on-grid and it may be years before it does.
Home batteries do not cut emissions, they increase them. In the future they may allow us to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but that point is still years away.
Rooftop solar by itself is cost effective. It is adding batteries that can make it uneconomical. The mistaken belief that rooftop solar needs batteries to be effective is causing harm to both the solar industry and the environment, as people are delaying installing rooftop solar until batteries become affordable. [Read more…]
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