I have the privilege of working in a building that is powered by the sun. Our company now generates it’s own power.

I love that fact.

Not just from the perspective of conservation (I live in NZ – hydro-electric power has provided more than half of the country’s electricity needs for the last 100 years), but the fact that we, and other adopters of solar power, are on the path towards self-sufficiency.

I also love the fact that our company is a provider of photovoltaic panels and therefore installed it’s own solar system. We practice what we preach. Most days we generate more power than we use and put power back into the grid. The money we make from our daytime generated power, means that our night time power usage only costs us 2/3’s of the standard cost.

Having our night time power costs reduced by 33% is great. Having our daytime power costs reduced by 100% is amazing! But it’s not yet as efficient as we need it to be.

We need to be 100% self sufficient, 24 hours a day. We all need to stop using fossil fuel.

The age of batteries is just getting started. In the latest episode of their animated series, “Sooner Than You Think”, Bloomberg’s Tom Randall does the math on when solar plus batteries might start wiping fossil fuels off the grid.

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Synergy Environments is the blog of Dean Murrell. He is a Christchurch, NZ based designer of audio visual and automated technology for organisational workspaces and residential homes. Feel free to contact him via the contacts page should you need further help and advice.