This is something we want to address. It’s quite simple to implement, as the following figure explains.
Figure 7: Implementing free electricity, as implemented in the grid, by connecting solar PV to the electricity grid. This would allow the amount of “free” electricity contained in the PV to offset any electricity costs involved in power generation. To get closer to actually solving this problem, we need to consider how to store the energy from solar electricity.
Sending power into the network
The energy we have stored from solar PV is ready to go as soon as we turn it into electricity. So our task is to find an easy way to send the energy stored in the PV to the grid in order to get back to ourselves in a reasonable time frame. This could be done with some sort of “virtual storage”: the PV would store some of the free energy and it would be possible to retrieve it from a system in your home by asking your energy company to send it to your location. Alternatively, we could use an “intermediate system”: the PV would be “plug-and-play” because it would be connected to the electricity supply (or distribution network). If your internet speed is fast enough to download all the stored electricity into the PV (we can assume that your internet speed is fast enough to download all the stored electricity to an external place), then at the end of the day it will be used the same way it was yesterday and would be ready to deliver it to the grid. In the latter case, you would need a system with “virtual storage” and “intermediate load control”. Both systems have been discussed at length elsewhere, but we want to take one simple example.
Let’s imagine that you have an 80w rooftop PV system installed in your flat. You connect the PV to your home’s electric meter by using a standard 110-volt wall switch, while your meter also has a remote control. The PV is connected to the grid using an inverter, which converts DC electricity into AC and back to DC at the grid, where you plug it in again again. From the system perspective, all this happens very quickly: after the solar PV receives the power it sent to the grid, it is “hungry” and requests some additional input from the other PV which is connected to the grid.
At this point we should consider the following assumption for this analogy. After you run out of room on a sunny day, you turn off the PV, disconnect the wires, and run up
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