Economies of Scale

Kauai Solar Farm. Photo from Tesla.

What would be cheaper in El Paso: to go off the electric grid or to have some solar and also depend upon the grid or to be a part of a community solar grid? I still haven't seen any hard and fast figures for each of these options. 

Check out this case study: Welcome to Paradise: Batteries Now Included. It begins by telling the story of Luke Evslin of Kauai, Hawaii, who, because of his desire to be as carbon-free as possible, went off the grid. What did he discover:

"Relying on personal power. . .is no way to power a community, let alone an island.

This became obvious to Evslin midway through his yurt experiment: Inefficiency is the ultimate downfall of any individual effort to address climate change."

“'Either you’re wasting electricity in a closed system, because it’s sunny and your batteries are full, or you don’t have enough power and you gotta run your generator,'” Evslin says. “'That’s not a bug in my system. That’s a feature of any off-grid system.'”

Kauai is quite a story. Mayor Bernard Cervalho led the charge for clean energy in keeping with the Paris Accords. The success on Kauai is notable and Evslin is a benefactor.

Bottom line:

"The economies of scale are such that Kauai’s utility cooperative can install a solar-and-storage unit for about half what it would cost a family to install the same amount on a house. Even when it comes to the island’s fossil fuel–generated power, the utility can produce more from a gallon of gasoline than someone with a $100 generator in their basement."

Read Welcome to Paradise.