I used to worship efficiency. For years as a control systems engineer, I sweated over fractions of a percent, shaving seconds off processes and optimising production lines.
Now I look around and realise: efficiency is dead. Killed by cheap solar and ever-cheaper batteries.
It pains me to admit that efficiency has lost. It has been beaten, hands down, by cheap generation and cheap storage.
The example that hammered this home for me this week? An Aussie who bought a 30 kWh home battery so he can both power his home and recharge his car every night. A battery charging a battery. That sound you hear is every efficiency nerd screaming into a pillow.
Rational But Wasteful
Would it be more efficient and better for the planet to simply plug the car in while it’s parked at work? Of course. But workplaces rarely have chargers. And he likely can’t control how many chargers are in his work car park. What he can control is slapping an oversized battery in his garage. Rational? Yes. Efficient? Absolutely not.
(Tune in next week, and I’ll explain why, without specialist configuration, he’ll still pull from the grid every night, even with his monster battery.)
I’m Guilty Too
Confession time: I own a solar pool cover designed to prevent heat loss. It stays rolled up most nights. Instead of rolling it out before bedtime, I just hammer the heat pump all day off my 20 kW array to make up for the overnight cooling. It’s lazy. It’s wasteful. It works.
Lifestyle and laziness beat efficient living. That’s the story now, and I’m guilty as charged.
In my defence, I do have a thermally efficient home. The comfort of a sensibly sized, well-insulated home with proper thermal mass and tight seals is a beautiful thing. You have to live it to appreciate it.
But it is a tough sell to convince homeowners to spend tens of thousands fixing their home’s gaps, glazing and insulation when they can just bolt 20 kW of solar to the roof, throw a big-ass battery in the mix, and run a ducted reverse-cycle off free energy until the place feels like a Westfield in summer. Efficiency is out. Brute force is in.
My home in Adelaide features a raft of energy efficiency innovations, but for many Australians brute force solutions are winning out.
The Easiest Path Always Wins
You can’t fight human nature. Efficiency feels virtuous, but most people will always choose the easy path. And right now, the easy path is simply to oversize your solar, battery and appliances and get on with life.
The truth is, efficiency was fragile all along. It only works when people have no alternative. The moment the lazy option got cheap enough, efficiency collapsed.
Do I like it? No. But results are what matter. If plastering our suburbs with solar and stacking batteries in garages cuts emissions and reduces particulate pollution, then it’s hard to argue against it.
Buying a monster home battery just to charge your EV might look inefficient – maybe even silly – but it’s still miles better than the laziest option of all: buying another petrol car.
Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.
