"Printable solar cells are here for $10 per metre. This is just TOO cheap to resist!"

- Says ye who screams "were running out of oil" and has no faith in humans ability to innovate.

"Tradies will be able to carry these in the back of their electric cybertruck. If they're out working on a farm property, they can spread a whole bunch of them out on the ground and recharge their truck while they work. Many trades trucks will have electric charging ports of their own to recharge electric drills and leaf blowers and chainsaws etc."

Tesla cybertruck doesn't look all that ideal for tradies.
Spreading them out on the ground mite be a hassle and they could get damaged.
Vehicles may need a dual battery and an isolator or they will flatten the driving battery

Sunpower has had flexible solar panels around for quite a few years.
Printable panels seem like an advancement, but as you say the efficiency might not be great yet.

I saw the roll-out solar arrays on one of the space missions the other day, that could work like a kings 4wd awning.
If they could make the roll-out kind durable / cheap /efficient enough, I reckon that might be a bit of a game changer.

Haystacks Solar Garden = looks like a return of the hippy commune

Let's look at the details

"Haystacks Solar Garden will be hosted by the 1.5MW
Grong Grong Solar Farm in the Riverina region of NSW
and will provide the opportunity for 333 cooperative
members to purchase 3kW equivalent solar garden plots.
Solar garden plots cost $4,200 each and are estimated to
produce an average $505 credit* on a member's
electricity bill each year for 10 years.
Cooperative Capital Units (CCUs) are being used as the
legal tool for selling solar garden plots to the co-op
members. CCUs are a type of debenture.
The anticipated $1,398,000 to be raised from the sale of
the 333 solar garden plots is planned to be loaned to the
1.5MW Grong Grong Solar Farm to partially fund its
construction. The remainder of funding for construction
comes from equity owners of Grong Grong Solar Farm
and grant funding from the NSW Government Regional
Community Energy Fund. The loan repayments from
Grong Grong Solar Farm to Haystacks Solar Garden will
form the revenue needed to create the on-bill credits for
members."

Looks more like a model for funding, where the electricity 'credits' are essentially just a loan repayment.
I'm not sure that you 'own' the garden plots generating capacity that you are essentially paying for, if its only a 10 year plan.

Armchair - once again you demonstrate why I don't bother speaking to you.
"Says ye who screams "were running out of oil" and has no faith in humans ability to innovate." You apparently missed all the bits where I said Solar and EV's are the answer? You seemed to miss the very point of this entire thread? (Facepalm. DERP!)
Also, if you look at the overall tone of my previous post you can see that I'm PROPOSING AN IDEA - not saying Haystacks Solar Garden are THE ONLY WAY to do it. You missed...
"This is where I imagine an Energy Co-Op would shine!..."
"But imagine the co-op is buying super-cheap plastic printed solar...."
"Imagine they get more ambitious and build a PHES scheme for overnight discounted electricity as well? (Pumped Hydro Electricity Storage.) If investors invest in the PHES - they might get cheap overnight power as well?"
Did I also mention that I want them NOT to be a greedy Corporation beholden to the stock market, but a Worker's Co-Op like the Mondragon Accord in Spain? That I want the workers to be paid fairly, and the CEO not to earn more than 8 times what the cleaners earn? That I want to be able to buy in for an insured package that lasts the warrenty period of the solar - NOT just 10 years - unless of course 10 years is the lifetime of printed solar?
How did ya go looking up those Haber-Bosch figures yet? Understand the 10:1 energy ratio yet - or still DERPING over that one? (Don't let this get your hopes up. I don't really want to talk to you right now or give you all the weird negative attention you want.)

So we have hundreds of battery swap stations, changing hundreds of five thousand pound batteries every day, what then?

Do we have a fleet of trucks carrying those 500,000 lbs of batteries back to central charging stations, large diesel generating plants at each changing station recharging the flat batteries, or is the long suffering public supposed to spend trillions on transmission lines to get enough power to those changing stations to recharge those flat batteries ready for the next truck?

As with all this "alternate" energy bunpf, it all sounds OK, until you look at the small print.

Hasbeen - that's SUCH a dump post I'm wondering if I should quote POE's Law?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

First - we may not NEED the battery swap gizmo. The Tesla Semi test has been completed and it took 36 tons 800km on one charge. Also, the Megachargers have been rumoured to give 400 MILES in 30 minutes. That's another 640 km's after a 30 minute lunch stop!
http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-semi-megacharger-charging-port-close-up-look/

Second - there's a whole battery revolution beginning. The Tesla Semi stats above will be beaten in the next 5 years by another 100 km range - and then ANOTHER 100 km range - and on and on it will go for a while yet.

Third - if we DO need battery swaps as this trucking line are using - why can't they charge them where they are? Why can't they charge them off renewables?

Trucking will need breaks somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne. You don't trust Toll or Kennards or whoever to set up a battery swap warehouse somewhere with a POWER GRID? (Facepalm DERP!)

Dude - get a life.

Rural areas have lots of space. That's their resource. They can use that by having sunlight fall on grass to feed cows, or solar panels to feed the grid. Super-cheap $10 per square meter printed plastic solar could be so cheap that this becomes a whole new industry!

Maybe the Toll or Kennards base will even buy power off a local off-grid country grid co-op like I'm imagining Walpole will from in the future? Walpole are the guys buying their own small PHES.

They might choose to go off-grid in a few years. PHES will be finished sometime next year. It gives them nearly 3 days backup.

ABC news story
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/renewable-energy-fix-walpole-power-problems/100579700

Western Power promo - Walpole looks like many coastal Aussie towns. Makes me nostalgic and need a holiday. Kick back and enjoy - 3 minutes.
http://youtu.be/vGqdYhVfYwM

Max,
If you don’t bother speaking to Armchair Critic why are you speaking to him?