AsymptoticLife, who is increasingly off the grid, says maybe it’s greener to be on the grid rather than totally off it, because then you can feed excess energy back into it so others can use it too.
Indeed. If millions of households created their own renewable energy with solar, wind, hydro, and sent the extra back to be used by anyone, then far fewer old school, carbon-spewing power plants would be needed.
“you can feed excess energy back into it” This can work only in theory. It is wrong to think of power plants as if they are bateries, and each household is also a batery. It is not the case. If each household is sending excess power back to the grid, the he grid should be configured differently. Think of it as if you have a grid where car batery (from truck) is connected in the same circle as bateries from wrist watch. There apsolutely no use of watch batery and would probably be burned out in a second.