Scheduled Blackouts promote battery backup?

With California on fire and without grid power, I have to ask myself if PG&E is trying to encourage grid defection? Are they trying to promote solar with battery backup? After speaking with my industry contacts in California, it sure seems so.

I always thought that there would be a tipping point sometime in the future where the price of batteries and solar panels would be low enough and the cost of electricity form the grid high enough that people would defect and go off grid. I’m not talking about a cabin in the woods either, I mean in a city. People will start to call up their local utility and say, “I don’t need my electric meter anymore, please come and pick it up”.

I just didn’t think that one of the largest utilities in the country would nudge people along the path; or should I say shove? California, the land of high technology and all things ‘future’… without power, no juice, no electricity.

Here’s my advice to PG&E, figure your grid out and make it work more often than it has in the past few months; people will get used to backing up their own homes and businesses and realize they don’t need you.