4 ms·

If it was so profitable, why wouldn't the electricity utility do it themselves? Certainly, they have the scale, infrastructure, and pricing power to do it. Oh,

by kurthr 1y ago

If it was so profitable, why wouldn't the electricity utility do it themselves? Certainly, they have the scale, infrastructure, and pricing power to do it. Oh, that's right. This is supposed to be wealth transfer.

schmidtleonard 1y ago
Someone at the generation facility ran the numbers and found that the grid was able to dispose of excess energy for peanuts but installing and maintaining a dedicated electronic load cost more than peanuts. I'd recommend digging elsewhere for conspiracy bait. This is a mild curiosity at best.
- hinkley 1y ago
  This is why we don’t move data center load to the coldest available data center to reduce the AC power fraction of the cost. The cost of electricity is a significant fraction of the overall cost but not high enough to make up for stranded assets. Computers not running during their best years is expensive. But I’m not sure that’s entirely correct, and maybe it’s time to revisit this. Any system that is selling responsiveness as part of their service has to keep a certain amount of equipment sitting idle. That’s just how queuing theory works. So while you cannot move all server load to the coldest available zone, we should still be able to run that center near capacity and use the hottest one for all reserve capacity. Power plants also have to deal with fines for exceeding emissions limits, but I suspect the problem here is that Bayesian analysis tells them that if a plant has to kick on early for some reason (early school release day, or another plant exceeded a maintenance window), it will still be needed for sure an hour from now, so it’s better to leave it running for 45 minutes doing nothing than to cycle it.
- petertodd 1y ago
  > This is a mild curiosity at best. Exactly. There are genuine economic/engineering reasons for negative prices to occasionally exist. But in a well-designed, well-run, grid price will be negative only a small minority of the time. It just doesn't make sense to install a bunch of expensive equipment to provide this service when sufficient capacity exists from "happy accidents" like spare battery storage. In the long run, better managed solar and wind should make negative prices a fairly rare event.
  - eru 1y ago
    Once you sign up customers for 'cheaper electricity, but you have to agree to the occasional loadshedding', you can probably also sign them up for a bit of 'oh, and please burn some more electricity, when we tell you to'. The former is already happening and useful, the latter would be a relatively simple and easy add-on that could be used to offer ever so slightly cheaper electricity.
    - jounker 1y ago
      My washing machine has a timer. I do the wash when local electricity rates are near zero.
      - eru 1y ago
        Yes, and you could imagine telling your utility: just kick off the laundry anytime in this time interval, in return for cheaper electricity.
bee_rider 1y ago
I’m just guessing but it probably isn’t so profitable. More like a “you already have the batteries, so why not?” type thing.
pfdietz 1y ago
One reason, that I understand has applied in Germany, is when taxes are applied both to the electricity the storage firm buys and to that which it sells. This puts a damper on the whole thing unrelated to any actual technical or economic realities.
0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
Even if the arbitrage exists, it does not mean you are equipped to profit from it. Furthermore, the rapid installation of battery capacity means that the profit margin for this activity is likely to dwindle as more entrants try and do the same thing.
jandrese 1y ago
Your electric utility could be doing this if they were more forward thinking and installed grid scale batteries, but that's not their business model so they don't do it.
- eru 1y ago
  Well, if other people are allowed to install batteries, then it might be fine that the utility isn't doing that. They don't need to do everything themselves.
rcxdude 1y ago
What do you mean by electricity utility? Which organisation specifically? The electrical supply is usually formed of multiple organisations with different responsibilities, which usually works pretty well, but it generally means that e.g. storage, transmission, and generation are not one single organisation.
- nwbort 1y ago
  Yes, including because firms at one level of the supply chain (eg, transmission) are in many countries precluded from operating in another level (eg, generation).
adrianN 1y ago
If you find a hundred dollars on the ground you don't pick it up because in an efficient market somebody else would have already picked it up, hence it can't be real?

by kurthr 1y ago

schmidtleonard 1y ago

Someone at the generation facility ran the numbers and found that the grid was able to dispose of excess energy for peanuts but installing and maintaining a dedicated electronic load cost more than peanuts. I'd recommend digging elsewhere for conspiracy bait. This is a mild curiosity at best.

hinkley 1y ago
This is why we don’t move data center load to the coldest available data center to reduce the AC power fraction of the cost. The cost of electricity is a significant fraction of the overall cost but not high enough to make up for stranded assets. Computers not running during their best years is expensive. But I’m not sure that’s entirely correct, and maybe it’s time to revisit this. Any system that is selling responsiveness as part of their service has to keep a certain amount of equipment sitting idle. That’s just how queuing theory works. So while you cannot move all server load to the coldest available zone, we should still be able to run that center near capacity and use the hottest one for all reserve capacity. Power plants also have to deal with fines for exceeding emissions limits, but I suspect the problem here is that Bayesian analysis tells them that if a plant has to kick on early for some reason (early school release day, or another plant exceeded a maintenance window), it will still be needed for sure an hour from now, so it’s better to leave it running for 45 minutes doing nothing than to cycle it.
petertodd 1y ago
> This is a mild curiosity at best. Exactly. There are genuine economic/engineering reasons for negative prices to occasionally exist. But in a well-designed, well-run, grid price will be negative only a small minority of the time. It just doesn't make sense to install a bunch of expensive equipment to provide this service when sufficient capacity exists from "happy accidents" like spare battery storage. In the long run, better managed solar and wind should make negative prices a fairly rare event.
- eru 1y ago
  Once you sign up customers for 'cheaper electricity, but you have to agree to the occasional loadshedding', you can probably also sign them up for a bit of 'oh, and please burn some more electricity, when we tell you to'. The former is already happening and useful, the latter would be a relatively simple and easy add-on that could be used to offer ever so slightly cheaper electricity.
  - jounker 1y ago
    My washing machine has a timer. I do the wash when local electricity rates are near zero.
    - eru 1y ago
      Yes, and you could imagine telling your utility: just kick off the laundry anytime in this time interval, in return for cheaper electricity.

bee_rider 1y ago

I’m just guessing but it probably isn’t so profitable. More like a “you already have the batteries, so why not?” type thing.

pfdietz 1y ago

One reason, that I understand has applied in Germany, is when taxes are applied both to the electricity the storage firm buys and to that which it sells. This puts a damper on the whole thing unrelated to any actual technical or economic realities.

0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago

Even if the arbitrage exists, it does not mean you are equipped to profit from it. Furthermore, the rapid installation of battery capacity means that the profit margin for this activity is likely to dwindle as more entrants try and do the same thing.

jandrese 1y ago

Your electric utility could be doing this if they were more forward thinking and installed grid scale batteries, but that's not their business model so they don't do it.

eru 1y ago
Well, if other people are allowed to install batteries, then it might be fine that the utility isn't doing that. They don't need to do everything themselves.

rcxdude 1y ago

What do you mean by electricity utility? Which organisation specifically? The electrical supply is usually formed of multiple organisations with different responsibilities, which usually works pretty well, but it generally means that e.g. storage, transmission, and generation are not one single organisation.

nwbort 1y ago
Yes, including because firms at one level of the supply chain (eg, transmission) are in many countries precluded from operating in another level (eg, generation).

adrianN 1y ago

If you find a hundred dollars on the ground you don't pick it up because in an efficient market somebody else would have already picked it up, hence it can't be real?