7 ms·

No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less. But we can barely get smart meters rolled out, and the backlash (in social med

No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less. But we can barely get smart meters rolled out, and the backlash (in social media and mainstream media) against real-time electricity prices was fierce. Annoying to me that so many seemed to completely dismiss the value of real-time electricity prices after the Texas snowstorm, including a lot of people who now talk about the need to decarbonize quickly and make sacrifices in the West.

Spooky23 5y ago
What was the value of the real-time pricing in Texas? (Beyond rewarding incompetence)
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  > * It's not only the plug size, it's also enabling me + my neighbors chargers to communicate so we can optimize load on the electric grid.* It means you can use a 30-50% smaller amount of solar, wind, transmission, and batteries, roughly, enabling cheaper energy, lower embodied emissions, and a faster energy transition (meaning reduced overall emissions). (And this applies to things like nuclear, too.)
- vel0city 5y ago
  Wealthy people could install solar + batteries to ensure they only use grid power in the cheapest of times. Poor people can be told they'll save hundreds of dollars on their electricity bill but often don't realize it means they need to turn off the AC when its hottest and turn off the heat when its coldest.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Right. I get the social equality aspects of the argument, but charging the fully burdened price for energy (i.e. which includes time of use) seems like a good way to get people to conserve smartly instead of wasting resources. It does make sense to turn down the A/C a bit when the grid is stressed, but there's literally no incentive to do so without some sort of realtime pricing. In fact, it makes MORE sense from an individual standpoint to turn it up as strong as it can be so if the power does go out, your house will stay cool a bit longer. That, collectively, increases the probability of the grid going out. It's a collective action problem, and without some sort of incentive to conserve use and greatest demand, it increases costs, emissions, and fragility of the grid. It's good that wealthy people install solar and batteries to only use grid power in the cheapest of times. We literally want to incentivize wealth being put to productive use (in this case, reducing stress on the grid and--in the case of solar especially--emissions). That means more resources for others.
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      Of course usage policy is good. In Ontario, we have 3 tariffs, high demand, average demand, low demand. And yes, I do adjust my electricity usage based on that. But this is standard, this doesn't change every week and it surely does not go up to thousands of dollars in the middle of a climate emergency. You can reap the benefits of having higher fee during higher demand periods without having the insanity of letting the market decide the price without any cap.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    You missed the part where all ratepayers get to pay off bonds for decades for a few days of incompetence-fueled crisis.
flavius29663 5y ago
The backlash was just stupid. They kept pumping out stories about how a poor family of four ended up with bills in the thousands, but never mentioned how that same family saved thousands over years with this contract... It seems to me that a lot of what happened was politicized just so people can trash the republicans.
- tw04 5y ago
  Because most people expect a utility to always be available and affordable. The average American would much rather pay an extra $10-20/month for their entire life for electricity than once every 10 years have a bill for $4,000 because they didn't want to freeze to death when an unexpected cold front rolled through.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    Spot prices are not for everyone. If you have an EV or if you plan other energy intensive activities smarter (like heating/cooling, washing+drying), you can save significantly more than 20 bucks a month. This is not a unique Texas solution to this problem. In the UK for example, a lot of people take out their gas heating and replace it with electric ones that can be "charged" overnight at cheap prices. It's the same think with credit cards and loans: they can absolutely wreck uneducated people, but they're not essentially bad if you know how to use them, they're quite advantageous.
    - tw04 5y ago
      You're arguing for normal operations, which nobody is disagreeing with. The sticking point you hand-waved away is what happens in an emergency. Telling someone "well you saved money over the last decade, SURPRISE!" isn't an acceptable situation for a utility.
      - flavius29663 5y ago
        I'm arguing for not trashing the idea of spot pricing because of one emergency. They could use better regulations for emergency situations, to prevent both customers and distributors going bankrupt, but making the case that spot pricing is bad because of what happened in Texas is short sighted. When the situation became a state of emergency, they could have stopped free trading and just provide everything they can, leaving the accounting for later. Or just capping the price to a lower level. In the meantime, spot pricing would be a very good thing to happen all across America, as I said - it's contributing massively to the de-carbonification of UK. Demand response would help reduce a lot of the spikes in usage, and make renewables integration easier.
Reason077 5y ago
> ”No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less.” Well, of course you pay less. There’s a lot of value to distribution networks in being able to flatten peak loads, so they will be paying/reimbursing you in some way for that capability. > ”the backlash (in social media and mainstream media) against real-time electricity prices was fierce.” Grid electricity by nature is scarce at times and abundant at others. So not offering real-time pricing is a market distortion and may not produce the best economic or environmental outcomes. That said, unpredictable bills can be a hardship for consumers that can’t store electricity or shift their demand. The correct approach is to let customers choose if they want real-time billing or a fixed rate.
- jfk13 5y ago
  > The correct approach is to let customers choose if they want real-time billing or a fixed rate. Wasn't that the situation that led to a mess in Texas?
  - Reason077 5y ago
    The mess in Texas was caused by not having enough reserve capacity to cover a period of exceptional demand, technical failures at power plants caused by extreme weather and under-investment, and not having sufficient interconnections with the rest of the North American grid which would have allowed more power to be imported. These problems are independent of whether you're operating a market model or a monopoly model. The market model is common throughout Europe, but widespread power shortages don't really happen because there are many interconnections between countries, and mechanisms (such as payments made to reserve generators based on their availability) which prevent market failure.
amenghra 5y ago
How about the charger talks to your oven, dryer, and other appliances so that you don’t need to budget the sum of everything in terms of amperage. Instead, your car can pause charging while your clothes are drying. This kind of stuff will only happen if standard protocols are agreed upon.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  No smarts needed. https://www.bsaelectronics.com/products/copy-of-dryer-buddy-customize-your-own-30a-240v-splitter-5ft-cable-with-meter https://www.bsaelectronics.com/products/copy-of-dryer-buddy-...
  - amenghra 5y ago
    True. Pricey but can be cheaper than having to rewire everything.

Spooky23 5y ago

What was the value of the real-time pricing in Texas? (Beyond rewarding incompetence)

Robotbeat 5y ago
> * It's not only the plug size, it's also enabling me + my neighbors chargers to communicate so we can optimize load on the electric grid.* It means you can use a 30-50% smaller amount of solar, wind, transmission, and batteries, roughly, enabling cheaper energy, lower embodied emissions, and a faster energy transition (meaning reduced overall emissions). (And this applies to things like nuclear, too.)
vel0city 5y ago
Wealthy people could install solar + batteries to ensure they only use grid power in the cheapest of times. Poor people can be told they'll save hundreds of dollars on their electricity bill but often don't realize it means they need to turn off the AC when its hottest and turn off the heat when its coldest.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Right. I get the social equality aspects of the argument, but charging the fully burdened price for energy (i.e. which includes time of use) seems like a good way to get people to conserve smartly instead of wasting resources. It does make sense to turn down the A/C a bit when the grid is stressed, but there's literally no incentive to do so without some sort of realtime pricing. In fact, it makes MORE sense from an individual standpoint to turn it up as strong as it can be so if the power does go out, your house will stay cool a bit longer. That, collectively, increases the probability of the grid going out. It's a collective action problem, and without some sort of incentive to conserve use and greatest demand, it increases costs, emissions, and fragility of the grid. It's good that wealthy people install solar and batteries to only use grid power in the cheapest of times. We literally want to incentivize wealth being put to productive use (in this case, reducing stress on the grid and--in the case of solar especially--emissions). That means more resources for others.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Of course usage policy is good. In Ontario, we have 3 tariffs, high demand, average demand, low demand. And yes, I do adjust my electricity usage based on that. But this is standard, this doesn't change every week and it surely does not go up to thousands of dollars in the middle of a climate emergency. You can reap the benefits of having higher fee during higher demand periods without having the insanity of letting the market decide the price without any cap.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  You missed the part where all ratepayers get to pay off bonds for decades for a few days of incompetence-fueled crisis.

flavius29663 5y ago

The backlash was just stupid. They kept pumping out stories about how a poor family of four ended up with bills in the thousands, but never mentioned how that same family saved thousands over years with this contract... It seems to me that a lot of what happened was politicized just so people can trash the republicans.

tw04 5y ago
Because most people expect a utility to always be available and affordable. The average American would much rather pay an extra $10-20/month for their entire life for electricity than once every 10 years have a bill for $4,000 because they didn't want to freeze to death when an unexpected cold front rolled through.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  Spot prices are not for everyone. If you have an EV or if you plan other energy intensive activities smarter (like heating/cooling, washing+drying), you can save significantly more than 20 bucks a month. This is not a unique Texas solution to this problem. In the UK for example, a lot of people take out their gas heating and replace it with electric ones that can be "charged" overnight at cheap prices. It's the same think with credit cards and loans: they can absolutely wreck uneducated people, but they're not essentially bad if you know how to use them, they're quite advantageous.
  - tw04 5y ago
    You're arguing for normal operations, which nobody is disagreeing with. The sticking point you hand-waved away is what happens in an emergency. Telling someone "well you saved money over the last decade, SURPRISE!" isn't an acceptable situation for a utility.
    - flavius29663 5y ago
      I'm arguing for not trashing the idea of spot pricing because of one emergency. They could use better regulations for emergency situations, to prevent both customers and distributors going bankrupt, but making the case that spot pricing is bad because of what happened in Texas is short sighted. When the situation became a state of emergency, they could have stopped free trading and just provide everything they can, leaving the accounting for later. Or just capping the price to a lower level. In the meantime, spot pricing would be a very good thing to happen all across America, as I said - it's contributing massively to the de-carbonification of UK. Demand response would help reduce a lot of the spikes in usage, and make renewables integration easier.

Reason077 5y ago

> ”No advantage to customers to optimize load to the grid unless customers pay less.” Well, of course you pay less. There’s a lot of value to distribution networks in being able to flatten peak loads, so they will be paying/reimbursing you in some way for that capability. > ”the backlash (in social media and mainstream media) against real-time electricity prices was fierce.” Grid electricity by nature is scarce at times and abundant at others. So not offering real-time pricing is a market distortion and may not produce the best economic or environmental outcomes. That said, unpredictable bills can be a hardship for consumers that can’t store electricity or shift their demand. The correct approach is to let customers choose if they want real-time billing or a fixed rate.

jfk13 5y ago
> The correct approach is to let customers choose if they want real-time billing or a fixed rate. Wasn't that the situation that led to a mess in Texas?
- Reason077 5y ago
  The mess in Texas was caused by not having enough reserve capacity to cover a period of exceptional demand, technical failures at power plants caused by extreme weather and under-investment, and not having sufficient interconnections with the rest of the North American grid which would have allowed more power to be imported. These problems are independent of whether you're operating a market model or a monopoly model. The market model is common throughout Europe, but widespread power shortages don't really happen because there are many interconnections between countries, and mechanisms (such as payments made to reserve generators based on their availability) which prevent market failure.

amenghra 5y ago

How about the charger talks to your oven, dryer, and other appliances so that you don’t need to budget the sum of everything in terms of amperage. Instead, your car can pause charging while your clothes are drying. This kind of stuff will only happen if standard protocols are agreed upon.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
No smarts needed. https://www.bsaelectronics.com/products/copy-of-dryer-buddy-customize-your-own-30a-240v-splitter-5ft-cable-with-meter https://www.bsaelectronics.com/products/copy-of-dryer-buddy-...
- amenghra 5y ago
  True. Pricey but can be cheaper than having to rewire everything.