Originally Posted by Duffman

I'm not an expert in high voltage power transmission, but everyone with solar is already back-feeding the grid at least past the transformer on the power pole, so if everyone were feeding the grid, maybe it'd be possible for the West Coast to power the East Coast after dark, or the North to power the South in the summer, and vice versa in the winter, so that there'd really only be a few hours in the middle of the night when we had to rely on non-solar power. I suspect the reason utility companies have fought solar tooth and nail is because they see it as a replacement, but if the grid could mitigate solar's biggest issue, which is reliability, then it could be mutually beneficial. But that's just a theory and I'm interested to hear if anyone knows of any show-stoppers for that.

Originally Posted by Duffman

I think what everyone is really pulling for though would be an energy storage method that's more effective than lithium ion batteries.