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What are the industry incentives for Tesla to do this, instead of utilities? It just seems kind of weird for Tesla to be saying "We'll sell you this thing you
by ethbro 6y ago
What are the industry incentives for Tesla to do this, instead of utilities?
It just seems kind of weird for Tesla to be saying "We'll sell you this thing you tell me you need" and also "Here's us building a thing to help you tell what you need."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nordsieck 6y ago> What are the industry incentives for Tesla to do this, instead of utilities? 1. Most utilities operate power plants, they don't operate power storage facilities. From a capital efficiency standpoint, power plants want to be run all the time, so there's not much that they can do that's particularly fancy. In contrast, Tesla both buys and sells electricity, so they have the opportunity to arbitrage across time. This is especially true in places where the cost of electricity dips below 0. 2. There are some utilities that have stored power (e.g. hydro dams). I suspect that they don't employ the engineering talent to pull off something like Autobidder.
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- rurban 6y agoBut those energy providers ("utilities") have the necessary political and budget power to pull off something like Autobidder. In many countries they are controlling local governments. Buying such a logistical solution is peanuts for them, automation is everything. They are already doing better things than just dumb ML, they have proper models and constraint and planning software.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIf they had the will and resources to do it, they would’ve done it. Having been in both engineering first and engineering last orgs, it’s clear they cannot execute in this regard (like a tech company).
- woodandsteel 6y agoRight. Because these utilities have, as Ruban says, "political and budget power" they are fat and happy, and don't bother with engineering innovation.
- ethbro 6y agoTo be fair, in many cases markets are explicitly set up to preclude innovation. Monopoly grants with rate caps don't afford much aspirational budget for SV-wage engineers.