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How long will the trial prices last? $2/kwh is insanely high; usually the wholesale electricity prices hover closer to $0.02-$0.04/kwh, although the recent gas

by WJW 4y ago

How long will the trial prices last? $2/kwh is insanely high; usually the wholesale electricity prices hover closer to $0.02-$0.04/kwh, although the recent gas price increases have disrupted that for now. The war in the Ukraine is not going to last forever though, and if gas prices remain this high we might see an accelerated transition to non-fossil based electricity generation. At $0.20/kwh, so prices 10x above "normal", you'd need 3.7k cycles to pay for the powerwall. That would be well above the lifespan of the pack, so at lower prices the profitability of the scheme (to the owner of the pack) falls off rapidly. I suppose it all depends on how long you estimate the trial pricing will last. TFA mentions in the fine print that this project "shall continue until at least December 31, 2023, unless expressly extended by PG&E or terminated sooner." Take from that what you will.

dtech 4y ago
Peak pricing is much, much higher than the prices you quoted and in the ballpark of the trial. E.g. before the 2021 Texas outage the offer price for additional power was the legal cap, $9 / KwH at the time.
- WJW 4y ago
  Peak pricing is indeed higher, but also much rarer. Prices of $2/kWh are reached extremely rarely, so the VPP in this scheme might only be operating once or twice a year. The calculation in the GPP about payback time for the powerwall assumed you could get a lot of cycles in, but at these elevated prices that seems unlikely to happen. Note btw that the $2 is flat, so even if prices reach $9/kWh you'd still only get $2/kWh back. I notice that the article does not include any expectations about how often the "events" would happen btw, even though the utilities would surely have enough data to at least make an estimate.
  - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
    The payback calculation was a direct reply to the concern that VPP use will wear out the battery too fast. The only reason it was done was to show that if VPP would trigger often enough to meaningfully harm the pack, it would also pay you more than enough to replace it. In practice, VPP will be rare, and thus the payouts will be low. But so will the harm caused to you by participating, assuming you already own a suitable system.

by WJW 4y ago

dtech 4y ago

Peak pricing is much, much higher than the prices you quoted and in the ballpark of the trial. E.g. before the 2021 Texas outage the offer price for additional power was the legal cap, $9 / KwH at the time.

WJW 4y ago
Peak pricing is indeed higher, but also much rarer. Prices of $2/kWh are reached extremely rarely, so the VPP in this scheme might only be operating once or twice a year. The calculation in the GPP about payback time for the powerwall assumed you could get a lot of cycles in, but at these elevated prices that seems unlikely to happen. Note btw that the $2 is flat, so even if prices reach $9/kWh you'd still only get $2/kWh back. I notice that the article does not include any expectations about how often the "events" would happen btw, even though the utilities would surely have enough data to at least make an estimate.
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  The payback calculation was a direct reply to the concern that VPP use will wear out the battery too fast. The only reason it was done was to show that if VPP would trigger often enough to meaningfully harm the pack, it would also pay you more than enough to replace it. In practice, VPP will be rare, and thus the payouts will be low. But so will the harm caused to you by participating, assuming you already own a suitable system.