7 ms·

Wouldnt prices of the grid go down as well? The grid could switch to a storage model too. Making it not that attractive to deal with all the maintenance.

by luis8 7y ago

toomuchtodo 7y ago
With renewables knocking on 1 cent/kwh at utility scale, retail prices will go down, and the majority of the cost will be storage and transmission. You might expect prices to be higher at night (the reverse of now), as more of the light vehicle fleet moves to EVs and everyone charges their cars at night (unless you can incentivize workplace charging, when the sun is shining).
- perilunar 7y ago
  > You might expect prices to be higher at night For people with rooftop solar and no batteries, that's already the case (depending on the feed-in tariff of course). Saw an article about this today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-...
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Yeah, definitely going to see tariffs disfavor rooftop solar (utilities don't want to be the "battery" if they can avoid it), which is going to increase battery uptake rate (to consume your own generation first instead of export it for no value to the grid), which will drive battery prices down faster.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
If there's that much storage in cars if a large % of transport switches over, especially consumer commuters with long-range batteries, perhaps a service can allow EV owners to get paid to allow their daily commute cars to store excess solar in the day and stream it back at night.
- basch 7y ago
  At what point does switching to something more trolleybus like, where your car charges while driving down the road, maybe in contact with a rail, make more sense than all this self driving and battery capacity? Even if it was just interstates.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Likely never (if you look at Tesla's luxury vehicles almost at 400 miles of range [S and X with Raven drivetrains] and their Supercharger charge rates [0-80% SOC in ~15-20 minutes]). Battery capacity per kg and charge rates are likely to improve faster than coordinating the deployment of nationwide rail or overhead wire electrical infrastructure on interstates (a Supercharger station only takes about two weeks to install, and costs ~$150k-200k). https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
    - Jamwinner 7y ago
      Yes, but energy density is terrible. You are having to move 3x the weight not to mention the huge effincicy hit . You arent taking reality into account.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - jsight 7y ago
        The Model 3 weighs hundreds of lb more than its equivalent in an ICE car, not 3x as much. These numbers are still improving as well.
        basch 7y ago
        I dont think the comparison is to ICE but to a car on a rail/line that doesnt need to carry its energy at all (or only a small battery for the last 30 miles.)
germinalphrase 7y ago
Maybe not. I’ve heard that the fixed costs of a traditional grid are substantial enough that if large numbers of homeowners moved to PV generation the grid costs could become unsustainable and ultimately unmaintainable/collapse.
- abraae 7y ago
  The grid would not collapse but instead would evolve (maybe wiping out whole swatches of companies and utilities in the process but so what). Many people won't (or can't) install their own PV/storage, but everyone needs electricity. Those without PV and/or storage will need to purchase their electricity from others. The mechanism for getting the electricity from seller to purchaser will be a grid of some sort. La plus ca change and all that.
- kjksf 7y ago
  Or the company maintaining the grid will raise prices. If you had to make the choice between "no electricity to power my fridge, my lights, my laptop" vs "pay double for the electricity", you'll pay double. If people respond rationally, this would lead to re-designing the grid to be more decentralized and maintain the lower cost of energy we get from solar.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  This a largely an accounting problem. Most consumers pay by kWh, with no separation between generation and transmission cost components. If more people generated their own power, they’d have to seperate out the generation and transmission costs.
  - cobookman 7y ago
    PGE & Peninsula Clean Energy already breaks out transmission and generation costs. Most the costs are for transmission. https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PCE_EcoPlus_Sample_Bill.pdf https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
  - 7y ago
marcosdumay 7y ago
I imagine cities will stay centralized. There is some money selling electricity from large plots to small ones (and apartment), a nice amount of it on selling from houses to industry, and a huge amount of it on intermediating the PV and storage transactions. But cheap batteries will probably means a large downsizing on the large distance distribution grid.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
Grid prices will go down as demand goes down when people start producing and storing energy themselves. With the cost of solar panels and batteries dropping and production capacity growing exponentially while prices continue to drop, the grid will be less important but still essential to many. It will also accelerate the demise of coal, gas, and nuclear as they are already too expensive and will have no chance whatsoever in an open market where prices are trending down massively over the next decades. The status quo of course is that they are effectively state protected monopolies currently in many places, which will slow things down in some places and is also the reason you get to pay many times the actual market price per kwh.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  If people still need the grid but don't oat for anymore, then the prices go up since the powerline companies are usually required to maintain them. It doesn't matter than you need power only 8 days a year few kw.

Wouldnt prices of the grid go down as well? The grid could switch to a storage model too. Making it not that attractive to deal with all the maintenance.

by luis8 7y ago

Wouldnt prices of the grid go down as well? The grid could switch to a storage model too. Making it not that attractive to deal with all the maintenance.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

With renewables knocking on 1 cent/kwh at utility scale, retail prices will go down, and the majority of the cost will be storage and transmission. You might expect prices to be higher at night (the reverse of now), as more of the light vehicle fleet moves to EVs and everyone charges their cars at night (unless you can incentivize workplace charging, when the sun is shining).

perilunar 7y ago
> You might expect prices to be higher at night For people with rooftop solar and no batteries, that's already the case (depending on the feed-in tariff of course). Saw an article about this today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-energy-is-it-worth-it/11738270 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-05/solar-panels-rebates-...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Yeah, definitely going to see tariffs disfavor rooftop solar (utilities don't want to be the "battery" if they can avoid it), which is going to increase battery uptake rate (to consume your own generation first instead of export it for no value to the grid), which will drive battery prices down faster.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

If there's that much storage in cars if a large % of transport switches over, especially consumer commuters with long-range batteries, perhaps a service can allow EV owners to get paid to allow their daily commute cars to store excess solar in the day and stream it back at night.

basch 7y ago
At what point does switching to something more trolleybus like, where your car charges while driving down the road, maybe in contact with a rail, make more sense than all this self driving and battery capacity? Even if it was just interstates.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Likely never (if you look at Tesla's luxury vehicles almost at 400 miles of range [S and X with Raven drivetrains] and their Supercharger charge rates [0-80% SOC in ~15-20 minutes]). Battery capacity per kg and charge rates are likely to improve faster than coordinating the deployment of nationwide rail or overhead wire electrical infrastructure on interstates (a Supercharger station only takes about two weeks to install, and costs ~$150k-200k). https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    Yes, but energy density is terrible. You are having to move 3x the weight not to mention the huge effincicy hit . You arent taking reality into account.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jsight 7y ago
      The Model 3 weighs hundreds of lb more than its equivalent in an ICE car, not 3x as much. These numbers are still improving as well.
      - basch 7y ago
        I dont think the comparison is to ICE but to a car on a rail/line that doesnt need to carry its energy at all (or only a small battery for the last 30 miles.)

germinalphrase 7y ago

Maybe not. I’ve heard that the fixed costs of a traditional grid are substantial enough that if large numbers of homeowners moved to PV generation the grid costs could become unsustainable and ultimately unmaintainable/collapse.

abraae 7y ago
The grid would not collapse but instead would evolve (maybe wiping out whole swatches of companies and utilities in the process but so what). Many people won't (or can't) install their own PV/storage, but everyone needs electricity. Those without PV and/or storage will need to purchase their electricity from others. The mechanism for getting the electricity from seller to purchaser will be a grid of some sort. La plus ca change and all that.
kjksf 7y ago
Or the company maintaining the grid will raise prices. If you had to make the choice between "no electricity to power my fridge, my lights, my laptop" vs "pay double for the electricity", you'll pay double. If people respond rationally, this would lead to re-designing the grid to be more decentralized and maintain the lower cost of energy we get from solar.
mr_toad 7y ago
This a largely an accounting problem. Most consumers pay by kWh, with no separation between generation and transmission cost components. If more people generated their own power, they’d have to seperate out the generation and transmission costs.
- cobookman 7y ago
  PGE & Peninsula Clean Energy already breaks out transmission and generation costs. Most the costs are for transmission. https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/for-residents/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PCE_EcoPlus_Sample_Bill.pdf https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
- 7y ago

marcosdumay 7y ago

I imagine cities will stay centralized. There is some money selling electricity from large plots to small ones (and apartment), a nice amount of it on selling from houses to industry, and a huge amount of it on intermediating the PV and storage transactions. But cheap batteries will probably means a large downsizing on the large distance distribution grid.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

Grid prices will go down as demand goes down when people start producing and storing energy themselves. With the cost of solar panels and batteries dropping and production capacity growing exponentially while prices continue to drop, the grid will be less important but still essential to many. It will also accelerate the demise of coal, gas, and nuclear as they are already too expensive and will have no chance whatsoever in an open market where prices are trending down massively over the next decades. The status quo of course is that they are effectively state protected monopolies currently in many places, which will slow things down in some places and is also the reason you get to pay many times the actual market price per kwh.

9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
If people still need the grid but don't oat for anymore, then the prices go up since the powerline companies are usually required to maintain them. It doesn't matter than you need power only 8 days a year few kw.