[NoLinkToMe]

It's not overpriced. If it was, the grid operator would be raking in massive profits because they're selling way above cost. In reality grid operators have small margins, this indicates there is no overpricing.

Do you get paid less for power fed to the grid than power sold at retail? Yes. Because they're different things. You get say 5 cents for a kWh fed back to the grid, while you pay more like 25c. But guess what? Wholesalers also get 5 cents to sell to the grid. It's just that there's an additional 20 cents in grid operation and taxes for a retail price.

Taxes you can't avoid, it's not a 'scam'. It's money you pay that goes into public funds and returns to the public, and is spent by people you can vote to elect to represent you.

Grid costs also aren't a scam, they're just a cost of doing business. Again, profit margins are small, so they're pricing based on cost, not based on scam.

And it's all entirely optional. You can just install batteries yourself. You can do whatever you want. You don't have to use the grid. But surprise surprise, there's no reason to think that a small network is on average cheaper than a big network. The bigger the network the easier it is to share storage capacity and offload excesses from one place to another. It's the reason most states and countries try to build interconnectors to even build international grids, and why islands like Cyprus that don't interconnect and have small markets have the highest electricity prices. It's why anyone who builds a home and has the choice to connect to an available grid or not, does so. And why land and homes in locations without grid-access are valued less, because they're more expensive to set-up.

[secabeen]

The cost of a nationwide grid is significant. Depending on the terrain and population density, it usually nets out at somewhere between 30%-50% the overall cost of electricity. Sure, if you run a microgrid among a few houses, you won't pay those costs, but someone has to pay the cost to maintain the km of lines to reach deep into the mountains of Bavaria.

Microgrids also have some black swan events that can result in outage; if you are reliant on solar and storage but then experience a 7-day long period of stormy weather and no production. As you note, off-grid is always an option, and when you seriously look into it, you quickly find that costs to have that 24/7/365 service are many times more than just paying to connect to the grid.

[balderdash]

At least in the us - the only way a utility can really make more money is by spending more money (as they get a return from the utility commission on a vested capital - massive oversimplification) but it means utilities are not incentivized to spend less rather than more…

[Affric]

Same in Australia, after they were corporatised (turned into companies run for profit rather than run as a service by some level of government) it was recognised that as natural monopolies there would need to be some sort of regulation on how much money they could recover, it was decided a method based on their costs was best, so they spent bad money agter good im expanding the network hugely (based on crazy projections of growth in demand to nowhere) rather than building resilience into the network and lowering their costs.

And that’s not even the cost of marketisation, that’s just the regulated network costs.

Series of awful blunders.

[lotsofpulp]

The government employees who approve or deny the utility’s priced have an incentive to not approve higher prices. Their bosses are usually elected, and higher utility prices are very unpopular.

[balderdash]

I was told by a former southern company exec that the McKinsey did a study for them and their largest competitive advantage was regulatory capture in the states in which they operate - unfortunately I think the politicians are more beholden to the utilities than their constituents..

[themafia]

The price doubled in 6 years.