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On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

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Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#181

Post by dreamcompiler »

The original vision of the Smart Grid (by competent engineers at EPRI and elsewhere) was to ensure better reliability, resilience, and efficiency of the grid under a mix of new generation, transmission, and distribution technologies. Unfortunately--as often happens--managers took the buzzword and changed its meaning to "A Good Way for Us to Make More Money by Throwing Smart Meters on Every House." Any thought about increased reliability and resilience went out the window.

The Smart Grid can still deliver on its original promise of a dependable, bidirectional electricity generation and delivery system. But in order for it to do so we're going to have to get rid of all the decision makers who only care about squeezing short-term profit out of the idea. It's going to require thoughtful, long-term investment.

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#182

Post by londons_explore »

InitialLastName wrote: post #178
tshaddox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I suspect power companies cannot generally shut off your power from their end. There's not a separate cable from the power plant to each individual home. There are really big cables that go most of the way from the power plant, then at each neighbhorhood or block they split off into smaller cables for individual homes. That's where the meter for each home is installed, and that's where the power company can turn…

On the last thing, AIUI from some research (confirmed as plausible by experience with similar systems): - The stream channels themselves are encrypted or scrambled in a way that is hard to unwind unless you have the keys (keeping non-SiriusXM radios from working) - Each radio has two important pieces of information: a decryption key from SiriusXM and a UUID (I'd guess 64bit, as that's a pretty standard size for hardw…

This may be the way SirusXM works, but it is far from optimal. The best scheme is to give the radios simple sequential (or near sequential) id's, and have the station transmit a bitmap of which id's are enabled/disabled. Then it's one bit per subscriber, and can be transmitted in a few seconds. That bitmap is authenticated by a public key stored in the radio. You might want to run length encode the bitmap if you assume that in 30 years there might still be a handful of ancient radios still alive you wish to service.

Satellite bandwidth is expensive... Activation time is annoying for customers... The above scheme saves either (or both).

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#183

Post by [deleted] »

leereeves wrote: post #147
twunde wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TX is __slightly__ different in that its fully deregulated and there's simply more knowledge about REPs/ESCOs and their pricing (because they customers HAVE to choose a REP). Also in what other state do you see billboard ads for REPs? What is genuinely sad is that Griddy has a "price-lock" (ie a fixed rate) for the summer, which is exactly what you're talking about regarding tail risk. They just don't have it for the…

I'm not sure they could have offered a reasonable fixed rate for the available power. When the federal DOE authorized the supply of emergency power that didn't meet the usual regulations, they required the price to be at least 10x the normal price ("no lower than $1,500/MWh"). I haven't been able to find out how much of the power supply that applied to, but at least some of the power during the disaster was legally r…

[deleted]

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#184

Post by dreamcompiler »

Spivak wrote: post #24
londons_explore wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a 100+ amp contactor and two way communication to every existing meter will add a lot to the cost of the equipment required at a user site.

Why do you have to do this on the meter side? Cant your power company shut off your power from their end?

They could if every house had a dedicated wire to the generator and there was a massive bank of switches in a giant building next to the generator that controlled power to every house. But no grid on Earth works that way.

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#185

Post by bumby »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #176
bumby wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on how the research was conducted and specifically how the risk was measured by consumers? There’s an awful lot of research that implies humans are very poor estimators of low probability / high severity events

Research was normal UX/cust research... interviews, polls, etc. Customers were intelligent and motivated by a desire to do their own hedging rather than have an REP in the middle with an opaque profits. There’s a lot of profit in there and customers wanted to keep it. Customer ultimately knows his own demand and tolerances better than any REP. When I say “he” I mean men. Overwhelmingly male market. Lots of small busi…

Thanks for responding. I’ll just say it’s important to distinguish between a desire to make a profit and the ability to accurately gauge risk. Behavioral economics has a lot to say about this

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#186

Post by freeone3000 »

paulgb wrote: post #164
majormajor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of hucksters is a big part of why regulation is created in the first place. If you have to "de"regulation something, ask why it was regulated in the first place!

I’m not an anti-regulation guy by any means, but I do think there are cases where too much regulation is bad for customers. I don’t know enough about Texas energy markets to say if it’s the case here, but for example the deregulation of airline markets in the US was almost certainly good for customers on net.

It's mostly not been great. Higher prices than national DOE prices, less prepared for extreme events, and notably, no power-sharing agreement possible with the national grid since they've explicitly opted-out, and vehemently defended that choice. The Texas grid is less reliable and more expensive than either US East or US West.

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#187

Post by InitialLastName »

londons_explore wrote: post #182
InitialLastName wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the last thing, AIUI from some research (confirmed as plausible by experience with similar systems): - The stream channels themselves are encrypted or scrambled in a way that is hard to unwind unless you have the keys (keeping non-SiriusXM radios from working) - Each radio has two important pieces of information: a decryption key from SiriusXM and a UUID (I'd guess 64bit, as that's a pretty standard size for hardw…

This may be the way SirusXM works, but it is far from optimal. The best scheme is to give the radios simple sequential (or near sequential) id's, and have the station transmit a bitmap of which id's are enabled/disabled. Then it's one bit per subscriber, and can be transmitted in a few seconds. That bitmap is authenticated by a public key stored in the radio. You might want to run length encode the bitmap if you assu…

Yeah, TBH I just assumed it was a unique ID baked into hardware because sequential IDs are a pain to manage, but your idea would be more efficient in the base case. As far as I can tell they also transmit things like channel-specific activations, but the sequential concept still works if that is a bitmap.

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#188

Post by freeone3000 »

cwkoss wrote: post #78
jonas21 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that -- but it seems like the main point of the article is: > I believe we ultimately need some degree of real time price exposure for consumers if we are to induce these kinds of widespread energy efficiency investments, because it can and does encourage significant reductions in individual electricity consumption during times of peak grid demand, which is good for the grid and good for the planet. And…

This is an important point, because the author of the post is essentially trying to argue that letting Texans either freeze to death or be price gouged is somehow necessary to fight climate change. Regulations would have solved this. Why does the word "regulation" only appear in this article once? Make winterization standards a requirement of participating in the market.

Regulation only appears in the article once because it's an article about the Texas grid, which is nearly fully deregulated internally, and is absolutely exempt from all federal regulations. Reliability is formed by adjusting spot prices and ERCOT's unique-in-the-nation capacity contracts, rather than specifying any individual generator comply to any individual standards.

(Here's what 'nearly fully' means: This is the section of what oversight ERCOT has over individual producers. https://www.puc.texas.gov/agency/rulesnlaws/subrules/electri... . It's a quick read, nine pages.)

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#189

Post by everybodyknows »

mortenjorck wrote: post #4

Is there a reason why time-of-use systems can’t have a customer-defined price limit, beyond which they opt into a blackout? The sense I got from the stories of people suddenly facing five-figure power bills is that most would have gladly spent a night or two with propane and candles rather than cleaning out their savings.

There’s a less drastic compromise: Power company sends a text one day ahead of expected stress, with news that tomorrow’s price will be 3x normal. Enough to focus customer attention, but without threat of financial ruin.

SDG&E, in California, offers such a plan (layered on top of conventional TOU terms).

Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills

#190

Post by freeone3000 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #109
jandrese wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the insurance payouts are like for power companies that let people freeze to death? Probably nothing because they'll claim they weren't to blame.

There are laws in place to prevent the utility companies from cutting off heat in situations like this. From: https://www.needhelppayingbills.com/html/utility_and_heating... > Texas - State law requires that utility and gas companies are required to offer a deferred payment plan to families and individuals in the state. No disconnect can occur if customer agrees and adheres to payment plan for past utility or heating…

The issue was rolling blackouts caused by insufficient capacity and lack of winterization in generation stations. I know people who lost power for 48 hours in 14F weather. We have at least 21 dead.
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