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Your post doesn't discuss demand response. How would you refute the claims of someone like Jigar Shah who often states that cheap renewables will not need batte

Your post doesn't discuss demand response. How would you refute the claims of someone like Jigar Shah who often states that cheap renewables will not need batteries if flexible demand is implemented, examples being heating and cooling electrification and demand flexibility...if the sun and wind are providing extra, use it to super heat or super cool preemptively before the weather shifts.

microcolonel 8y ago
Because if your approach is to dramatically change the most complicated part of the electrical grid, consumption, and you haven't exhausted the supply side improvements, then you're probably not going to succeed.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  I think a lot of that controllable consumption could be done by the computing power of a $6 ESP8266. It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kwh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Same for electric cars: I don’t care if it charges between 2AM and 4 AM or 7AM and 9AM, as long as it’s topped off by 9AM. I wouldn’t mind a piece of code on my laptop that would switch to battery when the electricity price became massive for a small period of time. Hot water heaters are effectively thermal banks. It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. If it’s exonomically viable, you’ll have people knocking on your door trying to sell it to you while still being beneficial to the buyer.
  - martyvis 8y ago
    I am probably similarly placed - but I am also going to be able to afford to renew things. I'm wondering whether the 99% will be incentivised enough though.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      Going forward, it’s simple: Charge the operations costs up-front. IE: charge up-front for the first 5 years of expected electricity use of the device. Then it goes against your bill over the next year. Now everyone buys the cheaper to own+operate one without thinking.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        That seems like it would make low income people even less likely to upgrade.
        Scoundreller 8y ago
        Depends on the design life of the thing. And how expensive it is to operate to begin with. And whether its even a thing that low income people would generally have in the first place.
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    This is unrealistic: >It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kwh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. Fridges lose a ton of cool air when you open them. You're going to end up with bad food if refrigeration can't kick in for 7 hours. >Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Waiting 8 hours to dry clothes is a great way to end up with dirty clothes again because of the moisture trapped in from the washer. >Hot water heaters are effectively thermal banks. Not really. Unless you effectively turn them into boilers, you max out at boiling temperature. Given that's barely twice the normal setting, it's not going to last for any long period of time that way. >It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. Ice is useless for people that need air conditioning. I think you vastly underestimate how much ice it would require to replace a large air conditioner cooling a single family home by 30F or so for 6+ hours.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      For the fridge: you use excess cooling in the freezer to keep the whole thing cool. Or a reservoir of compressed refrigerant. Or phase change materials. The point wasn’t to be off for 7 hours, but to look at the current and projected prices and decide when to run at a normal rate or when to kick into overdrive (2C fridge and deep freeze) or when to run at normal rate (maintain 4C and -18C). For the dryer, depending on electricity price, you run it at a slower or faster rate. Indeed, when I line dry, it can take a while, without the issues you bring up. If there’s a gust of wind, dial it up. When it’s calm, dial it down. Since wind goes in a direction, we have some idea of when turbines will put out more power that’s cheaper. Hot water heaters here have thermostatic mixing valves, so as long as we’re not boiling, we have a lot of margin to work with without scalding anyone. Finally, the nice thing about ice is that water is cheap. It’s already a commercialized tech, just not cheap enough for residential use.... yet. The point isn’t to use these reservoirs for 100% of needs, but size them up to be fully utilized on a regular basis buying electricity at low prices to offset higher prices. Sometimes that’s less efficient from a thermodynamic standpoint (the hotter hot water heater does shed more heat), but made up for in reduced op costs.
    - 8y ago
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kWh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. I think you'll find the idea of exposing the electricity market directly to consumers is not highly popular with consumers. Not that this is necessarily a bad idea, but definitely not popular right now. If you can think of a good way for the signalling layer of that to work, and find a utility to work with, then certainly it could help, but it isn't going to do everything you want. > Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Maybe you don't do laundry that often, but leaving wet clothing in a dryer for eight hours is not a good idea, in my experience. > It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. Due to thermodynamics, this is not helpful. > Same for electric cars: I don’t care if it charges between 2AM and 4 AM or 7AM and 9AM, as long as it’s topped off by 9AM. That's mostly new load (as far as the electrical utilities are concerned), so it isn't helping reduce peak demand.
bluGill 8y ago
Flexible demand doesn't go far enough. There are very cold weeks with little wind or sun (the sky might be clear, but because of angles there isn't much sun anyway). We would have to heat our houses to over 100C to keep the pipes from freezing before the end of the cold spell. Similar problems exist in summer. Demand can help a little in that we can heat houses warming in the evening while the wind is blowing and let the house drift down all night. Of course better insulation is assumed, but then you need an air exchanger which needs power to run as well.

microcolonel 8y ago

Because if your approach is to dramatically change the most complicated part of the electrical grid, consumption, and you haven't exhausted the supply side improvements, then you're probably not going to succeed.

Scoundreller 8y ago
I think a lot of that controllable consumption could be done by the computing power of a $6 ESP8266. It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kwh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Same for electric cars: I don’t care if it charges between 2AM and 4 AM or 7AM and 9AM, as long as it’s topped off by 9AM. I wouldn’t mind a piece of code on my laptop that would switch to battery when the electricity price became massive for a small period of time. Hot water heaters are effectively thermal banks. It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. If it’s exonomically viable, you’ll have people knocking on your door trying to sell it to you while still being beneficial to the buyer.
- martyvis 8y ago
  I am probably similarly placed - but I am also going to be able to afford to renew things. I'm wondering whether the 99% will be incentivised enough though.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    Going forward, it’s simple: Charge the operations costs up-front. IE: charge up-front for the first 5 years of expected electricity use of the device. Then it goes against your bill over the next year. Now everyone buys the cheaper to own+operate one without thinking.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      That seems like it would make low income people even less likely to upgrade.
      - Scoundreller 8y ago
        Depends on the design life of the thing. And how expensive it is to operate to begin with. And whether its even a thing that low income people would generally have in the first place.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  This is unrealistic: >It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kwh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. Fridges lose a ton of cool air when you open them. You're going to end up with bad food if refrigeration can't kick in for 7 hours. >Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Waiting 8 hours to dry clothes is a great way to end up with dirty clothes again because of the moisture trapped in from the washer. >Hot water heaters are effectively thermal banks. Not really. Unless you effectively turn them into boilers, you max out at boiling temperature. Given that's barely twice the normal setting, it's not going to last for any long period of time that way. >It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. Ice is useless for people that need air conditioning. I think you vastly underestimate how much ice it would require to replace a large air conditioner cooling a single family home by 30F or so for 6+ hours.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    For the fridge: you use excess cooling in the freezer to keep the whole thing cool. Or a reservoir of compressed refrigerant. Or phase change materials. The point wasn’t to be off for 7 hours, but to look at the current and projected prices and decide when to run at a normal rate or when to kick into overdrive (2C fridge and deep freeze) or when to run at normal rate (maintain 4C and -18C). For the dryer, depending on electricity price, you run it at a slower or faster rate. Indeed, when I line dry, it can take a while, without the issues you bring up. If there’s a gust of wind, dial it up. When it’s calm, dial it down. Since wind goes in a direction, we have some idea of when turbines will put out more power that’s cheaper. Hot water heaters here have thermostatic mixing valves, so as long as we’re not boiling, we have a lot of margin to work with without scalding anyone. Finally, the nice thing about ice is that water is cheap. It’s already a commercialized tech, just not cheap enough for residential use.... yet. The point isn’t to use these reservoirs for 100% of needs, but size them up to be fully utilized on a regular basis buying electricity at low prices to offset higher prices. Sometimes that’s less efficient from a thermodynamic standpoint (the hotter hot water heater does shed more heat), but made up for in reduced op costs.
  - 8y ago
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > It shouldn’t be hard for my fridge or hot water heater to buy a kWh of electricity anytime over the next 7 hours to do it’s thing. I think you'll find the idea of exposing the electricity market directly to consumers is not highly popular with consumers. Not that this is necessarily a bad idea, but definitely not popular right now. If you can think of a good way for the signalling layer of that to work, and find a utility to work with, then certainly it could help, but it isn't going to do everything you want. > Same for dishwashers and clothes dryers: I’m 100% okay with pressing “Clean/dry within 8 hours” setting. Maybe you don't do laundry that often, but leaving wet clothing in a dryer for eight hours is not a good idea, in my experience. > It shouldn’t be hard to convince people to replace their AC with a unit that makes ice overnight if it cuts their electricity bill in half. Due to thermodynamics, this is not helpful. > Same for electric cars: I don’t care if it charges between 2AM and 4 AM or 7AM and 9AM, as long as it’s topped off by 9AM. That's mostly new load (as far as the electrical utilities are concerned), so it isn't helping reduce peak demand.

bluGill 8y ago

Flexible demand doesn't go far enough. There are very cold weeks with little wind or sun (the sky might be clear, but because of angles there isn't much sun anyway). We would have to heat our houses to over 100C to keep the pipes from freezing before the end of the cold spell. Similar problems exist in summer. Demand can help a little in that we can heat houses warming in the evening while the wind is blowing and let the house drift down all night. Of course better insulation is assumed, but then you need an air exchanger which needs power to run as well.