Cross-posted from: https://cleanenergyreview.io/p/grid-defection-is-coming-to-california

A decade ago, a specter haunted Europe.

No, not Communism; utility death spirals.

Utilities were faced with growing legions of subsidized rooftop solar customers who weren’t paying enough into the grid to cover system costs. Some were even leaving the grid entirely (otherwise known as grid defection). Their share of system costs would then fall on non-solar customers, causing more people to switch until the utility’s business had been irreparably eroded…

Except this didn’t come to pass, mostly because defecting proved too costly for customers once regulatory supports were reduced.

Rooftop solar was relatively expensive, and only produced power during the day. Batteries to make the system work 24/7 were even more expensive. Regulations were restructured to avoid unduly favoring renewables. As a result, regulators and utilities mostly stopped worrying about grid defection and utility death spirals.

But Hollywood loves a sequel, and the specter of a utility death spiral has returned to haunt California.

In fact, for some households grid defection is currently the economic choice. If recent trends continue, it will only become more viable for more households over the coming years.

The time is now ripe for Californians to start leaving the grid.

On one hand, this has potentially dire implications for local utilities. Grid defection at scale makes a utility death spiral increasingly likely.

On the other hand, this is an exciting moment. The cost of renewable energy has gotten so low, and the efficiency so high, that a household can reasonably cover its needs from onsite generation alone. No more power outages, no more rising utility rates or impenetrable bills, just clean steady electricity from the sun in the sky (and the battery in your garage).

True energy independence is within reach for many Californians.

Why now and why California?

The price of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules—the panels in a rooftop solar system—has fallen dramatically as global production has ramped up.

Source: Our World In Data

Source: Casey Handmer

Residential solar prices have fallen alongside (albeit not as quickly due to the large drag from soft costs like customer acquisition, which I dug into here).

Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Battery cell prices have also dropped dr...

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