On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
astanway.medium.com
On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
1–10 of 223 posts
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#2If you're feeding power back into the grid are you getting paid at these rates?
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#3If you're feeding power back into the grid are you getting paid at these rates?
For wholesale players: yes. If you're a retailer and you buy an electricity future and then only use half of it across your customer base, you sell the remainder at real time prices. And for generator, selling real time power is the entire business model.
For consumers: no, not generally. Some markets have schemes to sell leftover solar power at real time prices, but I believe these are being phased out. Both grids and markets are by and large not set up yet for full two-way markets between consumers and producers.
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#4Is 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.
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#5If you're feeding power back into the grid are you getting paid at these rates?
This is a good point. Markets sting when they skyrocket to high prices. But the sting is supposed to be matched bit for bit by the benefits-- incentivizing people to cut back when they should (something most people would only begrudgingly acknowledge as a benefit when it's happening to them, if acknowledge it at all), and incentivizing innovative behaviors to exploit it to make a quick buck.
I haven't heard much about that last part; like you said, it would be great if the market works such that on the margin a player can exploit that price to make a quick buck (by, e.g. rigging some kind of battery up before a storm that's coming and making bank off the arbitrage when the storm hits by emptying the battery back in to the grid). Now maybe the transaction costs or economies of scale or whatever make that infeasible-- if so too bad-- but it's worth remembering this is half the benefit of a market system.
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#6Is 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.
Laws generally prevent this (generally a customer's supply can only be cut off with a long and precise legal procedure).
It's possible it might be doable with a user override.
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#7I am not in Texas, so a couple of questions for those who may be affected by this story, because I've been wondering about this:
1. If you are on this plan, what is your visibility into current prices for electricity? e.g., are there any alerts that you could have signed up, even if you hadn't before?
2. Have you been bitten by unexpected high prices before, perhaps in the summer?
3. Prior to this event, would you say you saved money overall with Gridly?
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#8Is 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.
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.
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#9Is 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.
Or, is there a way for these customer facing companies to hedge against this risk via options, and utilize this to set a price cap (passing on a small monthly fee to the customer)?
Re: On power markets, snow storms, and $16k power bills
#10If you're feeding power back into the grid are you getting paid at these rates?
I have solar on my house and in IL we get paid via "net metering": https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/illinois-net-metering/ . The idea is you size a system for your annual energy consumption, and then you don't pay for electricity for the year.
If you sold the power back for real-time pricing you'd need a much larger system than your annual consumption. Net metering basically lets you sell the power back at a retail price, not a wholesale price.