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> "Perhaps its time we started to design power-consuming devices to take advantage of fluctuating electricity costs." If your goal is to make money, then sure.

> "Perhaps its time we started to design power-consuming devices to take advantage of fluctuating electricity costs." If your goal is to make money, then sure. If your goal is to reduce the damage caused by burning fossil fuels, I'd suggest reconsidering. A better use of these negative prices is reducing the number of actively used power stations based on fossil fuels. We would need to keep them until further load balancing capacity could be introduced (i.e. until we no longer had the need to turn the polluting power stations back on). The ultimate goal is a flexible power grid that kept environmental pollution to an absolute minimum.

aembleton 9y ago
If my IOT freezer could reduce the temperature of the freezer by a further 5c when power is negative and let it rise a couple of c when price rises above 1 standard deviation from the median price then the price signals could be used to modulate demand. This would save me money, and reduce demand on the grid when there is no renewable energy. My freezer would effectively become a battery, storing energy as a reduced temperature. Multiply this across all households and add in other devices like tumble driers and you could have a real impact.
- shagie 9y ago
  This approach is used for air conditioning. When power is cheap (at night), a building's air conditioning system freezes a large block of ice. During the day, the ice is used to cool air which is then circulated in the building rather than drawing power to cool air through a traditional air conditioner. http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/new-york-ice-cooling/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/new-york-ice-...
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "you could have a real impact" You could have a real impact on what? Your wallet? My point is, we ultimately want to reduce demand on non-renewable sources of energy. With that in mind, running additional devices to soak up the excess demand of the current grid is a mistake, as it hides the fact that not all the electricity was truly needed, and therefore gives no incentive for the electricity producers to reduce supply, which means they'll keep running all the non-renewable power plants they currently do. You may think that the actions of an individual don't add up to much, but collectively they do, so small acts of reducing electricity usage can have a real impact, both on your wallet and the environment.

aembleton 9y ago

If my IOT freezer could reduce the temperature of the freezer by a further 5c when power is negative and let it rise a couple of c when price rises above 1 standard deviation from the median price then the price signals could be used to modulate demand. This would save me money, and reduce demand on the grid when there is no renewable energy. My freezer would effectively become a battery, storing energy as a reduced temperature. Multiply this across all households and add in other devices like tumble driers and you could have a real impact.

shagie 9y ago
This approach is used for air conditioning. When power is cheap (at night), a building's air conditioning system freezes a large block of ice. During the day, the ice is used to cool air which is then circulated in the building rather than drawing power to cool air through a traditional air conditioner. http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/new-york-ice-cooling/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/new-york-ice-...
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "you could have a real impact" You could have a real impact on what? Your wallet? My point is, we ultimately want to reduce demand on non-renewable sources of energy. With that in mind, running additional devices to soak up the excess demand of the current grid is a mistake, as it hides the fact that not all the electricity was truly needed, and therefore gives no incentive for the electricity producers to reduce supply, which means they'll keep running all the non-renewable power plants they currently do. You may think that the actions of an individual don't add up to much, but collectively they do, so small acts of reducing electricity usage can have a real impact, both on your wallet and the environment.