Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Time of use electric rates in the news

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Time of use electric rates in the news

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/e...-or-batteries/

    About how smart appliances will automatically run when power is cheap someday, maybe.

  • #2
    Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/e...-or-batteries/

    About how smart appliances will automatically run when power is cheap someday, maybe.
    Sounds like something similar to the "setback" thermostats that came out in the 80's. It allowed a home owner to determine when their Heating or AC system came on during the day and night which allowed them to save energy.

    Great idea until the cost of energy went down and many people chose to manually override the set back functions and just run the equipment when they wanted.

    Some combination of "smart" technology and people "awareness" has to come into play for those new appliances to work efficiently otherwise humans will take control of their devices because they want to be "independent".

    One area that will happen some day in the future and after (excuse the pun) the "roadblocks" are removed will be autonomous vehicles. It may require an increase in auto insurance or much lower costs to get this to happen but IMO it might be safer on the roadways then now with people driving (or texting while driving) themselves.

    Comment


    • #3
      very interesting

      Howdy,

      We have so called smart meters here now and the next steps from the POCO's is they want to charge a premium based on different times of the day basically late afternoon into early evening. Now they say that you can avoid using power during this time and save money BUT hang on a minute, thats when all the kids get home from school and turn everything in the house on, and when you need to turn the AC on if its hot and it also when most people like to eat dinner, these greedy institutions can not be trusted, well in my opinion. Be careful people.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by solar pete View Post
        ... these greedy institutions can not be trusted, well in my opinion. Be careful people.
        On the other hand, the TOD pricing does to a greater or lesser extent correspond with the utilities actual costs to produce demand power above their baseline generating capacity at various times of the day. They may also be under government pressure to reduce peak and total demand, and this pricing could be seen as a step towards that.

        Do not expect that they are introducing TOD for your benefit, but that does not mean that you cannot leverage that scheme for your benefit, especially when looking at net metering of a grid tie PV system.

        What is happening in the US is that is a problem is that utilities are shifting the "super peak" rate hours later into the evening so that rather than directly matching the demand they serve to move the most productive PV hours out of that rate category.
        SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by inetdog View Post
          On the other hand, the TOD pricing does to a greater or lesser extent correspond with the utilities actual costs to produce demand power above their baseline generating capacity at various times of the day. They may also be under government pressure to reduce peak and total demand, and this pricing could be seen as a step towards that.

          Do not expect that they are introducing TOD for your benefit, but that does not mean that you cannot leverage that scheme for your benefit, especially when looking at net metering of a grid tie PV system.

          What is happening in the US is that is a problem is that utilities are shifting the "super peak" rate hours later into the evening so that rather than directly matching the demand they serve to move the most productive PV hours out of that rate category.
          Sometimes the potentially not so valid reasons tag along with those that actually make some sense.

          Comment

          Working...
          X