code requirements like those in the Californian cities of San Jose, Santa Rosa and Los
Gatos, which ensure new homes have solar panels, are fully electrified and do not rely
on natural gas. These residential solar-power systems include a car-charger and a
battery to store solar energy and share it with the grid. Induction stoves for cooking,
radiant heating systems in place of radiators and never having to visit a petrol station
not only reduce the cost of living, they deliver a more delightful day. The battery makes
each home more resilient in the event of a hurricane or blackout.
Utilities will also embrace this future. In 2020 Pacific Gas & Electric became the largest
American utility to express support for electrification, on the basis that gas
infrastructure “might later prove under-utilised”. Covering all suitable rooftops with
solar panels could provide almost half of America’s electricity needs, and 75% of
California’s. Pair batteries with those installations, and they can be networked into
virtual power plants. Buildings generate their own energy with rooftop solar, store what
they do not use and sell that energy to the grid, thereby reducing the need for polluting
power plants to cope with peak demand. Just 75,000 properties in Los Angeles can
generate 300 megawatts of energy—equivalent to a natural-gas power plant. And
customers pay less than they would for conventional utility power.
Dozens of virtual power plants are already active today, but many more will come
online in 2021. In 2020 a minority of rooftop solar systems in America included a
battery. In 2021 battery deployments will more than double, to a total of 3.5 gigawatts
of capacity. That is enough to retire almost 10% of California’s natural-gas power
plants—10% in one year, and that’s just in 2021.
Better still, all this will create record numbers of new jobs, nearly 30m over the next
decade in America alone. “Solar installer” was the fastest-growing job category before
the pandemic hit. This transformation is inevitable—and the faster we do it, the less it
will cost.
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