Today IKEA, the Swedish "everything you need comes flat
packed in a box" store, announced it will be selling solar panels in
England. The cost is around $9200 US and the company claims that the energy
they can harness will be free after just seven years. The panels will be sold
and installed by IKEA, so it is not like you can just take them home in the
back of your soccer-mom minivan. IKEA also will install it hooked to the
grid, so for my tiny house application this just will not work, however I take
this as a sign of things to come. Most of the articles I read today talked
about how much solar technology has increased while the costs have decreased in
just the last five years. I find this very encouraging. This decreasing cost
has me thinking about he future of the "grid." Could the grid be
facing some problems with becoming obsolete and infrastructure failure due to
falling revenues?
