[jakewins]

No reason to be rude or hyperbolic - I agree with you that cars destroy communities and we should strive to reduce the need for cars and parking.

For solar powered homes specifically though, multi-story buildings are much harder to run solar powered from the simple ratios - even if you reduce energy use 75%, at 4 stories you are break-even in roof-ratio-to-energy-need. I’ve worked in this space a while, and it’s now pretty straight forward to run single-family homes 24/7/367 on solar in most of the world, but multi story buildings are much harder.

Nothing is ever simple or one-dimensional :)

[coryrc]

I mostly agree with you, however...

You don't need to colocate solar at the point it's used. Utility solar is cheaper than rooftop, by multiple.

The last part isn't true. There's no way you're running a home, including heat, entirely of solar in the winter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[jakewins]

Utility solar is cheaper in studies that do not factor in the cost of distribution, but the picture is much less clear when total system cost is considered - not having to pay for expanded distribution grids or new interconnects is a major benefit of residential production.

As for the last part not being true, can you clarify? The majority of the earths population lives between the 20th and 40th latitude, the band around the earth approximately between Madrid and the Sahara desert. Sure you can’t run a poorly insulated home in northern Michigan on solar year around without considerable expense, but that’s nowhere near where the majority of humanity lives.

[coryrc]

I misread you as saying all homes. You're right that anywhere that's sunny year round, a SFH can be self-sufficient for electricity with photovoltaic and batteries.