[MikeCapone]

Power plants aren't free, people pay for the service they provide. If you can replace them with less expensive batteries (especially since people will be ready to buy electric cars for their main benefit, which is transportation -- getting paid to lease you battery is a side benefit) to store cheap solar power, that's a good deal, not a subsidy.

[brc]

>If you can replace them with less expensive batteries

Agreed. And when that is the case, then this behaviour will appear at large and be taken up enthusiastically.

At the moment this manifestly isn't the case (stored solar by batter cheaper than large-scale power), so any calls for it to happen is usually a disguised call to force it to happen by producing regulatory benefits to a small subset by driving up the cost for others.

I have zero problem with people electing to spend their own money on solar + battery storage. I find the tech interesting. I am simply determined to point out whenever I see this type of call that usually this means taxing poorer people to pay for richer peoples desires.

[MikeCapone]

Maybe I misread, but I think the OP pointed out that it could be done with today's technology, not that it could necessarily be done cost-effectively today. But batteries are improving and their costs are coming down, so it's certainly possible to predict that it'll be possible at some point in the not-too-distant future. When that happens, people will be compensated because it makes economic sense, not because they are subsidized into an un-economic activity (though that could happen too, but I don't think that's what was argued here).