4 ms·

>Of course this requires major changes to metering and billing, but there is no technical reason why it couldn't happen, it is all a business and infrastructure

>Of course this requires major changes to metering and billing, but there is no technical reason why it couldn't happen, it is all a business and infrastructure problem. It is mainly a political problem. Utilities want you to be their customers not suppliers - if you're a supplier you're destroying their profit margins. Thus any attempt to upgrade metering and billing capabilities of the system and to let households sell surplus electricity at a fair spot price will be met with resistance from the monopoly-utilities.

vidarh 12y ago
It doesn't even need to change to allow fair price sales. Just spot priced supply and a way to easily get the current price would allow a lot of optimisation. E.g. consider a washer-dryer or dishwasher with a "wash within X hours, or at predicted best price point" option. Most of the time I don't care when it runs when I put something in at the evening, just that it's done before I'm home from work the following day. Or aforementioned electric car with a similar option. Or water heaters with a storage tank and logic to optimise heating. Or a data centre that tries to optimise air con settings depending on predicted cost (e.g. pushing temperatures down further than necessary when the power is cheaper to allow running at lower power for a period when power is more expensive while the temperature rises again). With access to spot priced supply, there'd potentially be a massive market for adding intelligence to various devices where part of the energy usage could be time shifted.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  You can basically do this already. Generally your electric bill will have fixed prices throughout the day. Spot price for retail doesn't fluctuate (as far as I'm aware). It'll get more expensive during mid-summer at certain times of day, but you'll know when.

4 ms·

>Of course this requires major changes to metering and billing, but there is no technical reason why it couldn't happen, it is all a business and infrastructure

by crdoconnor 12y ago

vidarh 12y ago
It doesn't even need to change to allow fair price sales. Just spot priced supply and a way to easily get the current price would allow a lot of optimisation. E.g. consider a washer-dryer or dishwasher with a "wash within X hours, or at predicted best price point" option. Most of the time I don't care when it runs when I put something in at the evening, just that it's done before I'm home from work the following day. Or aforementioned electric car with a similar option. Or water heaters with a storage tank and logic to optimise heating. Or a data centre that tries to optimise air con settings depending on predicted cost (e.g. pushing temperatures down further than necessary when the power is cheaper to allow running at lower power for a period when power is more expensive while the temperature rises again). With access to spot priced supply, there'd potentially be a massive market for adding intelligence to various devices where part of the energy usage could be time shifted.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  You can basically do this already. Generally your electric bill will have fixed prices throughout the day. Spot price for retail doesn't fluctuate (as far as I'm aware). It'll get more expensive during mid-summer at certain times of day, but you'll know when.