[aclatuts]

Disconnecting from the grid is overly romanticized. What you get from paying the utilities is a team of people who will fix equipment issues due to failure or the environment. If your home battery system has issues, scheduling someone could take a day or more. Off grid electrical services isn't popular enough to be on call 24/7. And getting parts may get take even more time. Equipment failure could take your electricity out for days or weeks. Being fully off grind means over provisioning your electrical storage and production, adding to costs. You also would not be able to sell your excess electricity. Also, in terms of house value, I imagine more people value the peace of mind of a connected electrical grid over saving the small fixed monthly connection fee.

[grecy]

> What you get from paying the utilities is a team of people who will fix equipment issues due to failure or the environment

Friends have lived off-grid in the Yukon in a very nice house for 20 years.

It's hard to get house insurance when you're not on the grid, and whenever they get asked about it, they ask the insurance person on the phone "When was the last time you had a power outage?" (inevitably the answer is sometime in the last month or three - the power grid in the Yukon is a fickle thing).

In 20 years, they've never had a single second of power outage in their very nice off grid house.

[s1artibartfast]

I totally agree that it is not for everybody, but I think there is a place for it and think there should be fewer barriers .

I've seen a few people quoted more than 500K for PG&E to run power to their house. That can buy a lot of redundancy and peace of mind. Similarly, many cities have power outages longer than 24 hours on an annual basis in California. At this point most people in my neighborhood have gas generators for when the grid goes out.

[coffeebeqn]

Heck for 500k you can start your own Solar power plant and serve the neighborhood

[s1artibartfast]

Nope, you need a permit for that and it would cost a lot more!