this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
711 points (97.1% liked)
Technology
78964 readers
3690 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That is excellent and cost effective, however what then when there’s no sun out or it’s cloudy? Will you not travel?
This is one of the concerns I have watched with interest …..
Your concern may be technically and historically valid but is rapidly disappearing
That's about right. I have product tío and storage at a 115% of my consumption, which translates to actually using some grid because the sun is not always out (although you would think it is where I live, lol). That allows me to finish the year with an excess credit of about 200 dollars with the electric company, but I still use some of the grid during hurricane season and very rainy periods of 3 or more days, which rarely happens.
You're not going to believe this, but solar panels will still work even when the light is reflected or partially blocked by clouds. Rain actually helps to keep your panels operating efficiently by washing away any dust or dirt. If you live in an area with a strong net metering policy, excess energy generated by your panels during sunny hours will offset energy that you use at night and other times when your system isn’t operating at full capacity.
That’s crazy. I never would’ve guessed. Did you also know solar panels have a theoretical limit of 33%, which is diminished even more when sunlight is further blocked? Wow! That means they’re horribly inefficient and even more so when less light comes in! Who knew! So really we’re talking about pennies on the dollar at the end of the day when something like supplying a grid at a larger level would mean nuclear.
Did you know fractions are predicated on a base value?
That's definitely an aphorism.
That's what the batteries are for?
Source : I drive an EV on cloudy days.