Can Surge Pricing Cut Energy Use at Home?

[Disir]

Each day, energy use in California peaks exactly when you’d expect it to -- in the late afternoon, when people are coming home from work, cranking up their air conditioning, making dinner, watching TV and doing household chores.

But generating power during those hours is both costly and wasteful. “To meet peak demand, utilities have to turn on more generators, and the generators they turn on last are the least efficient and most polluting,” says Edward Randolph, deputy executive director for energy and climate policy at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

That’s why CPUC is moving to “time-of-use rates” -- akin to “surge pricing” on Uber -- which charge customers more between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weeknights, with the goal of shifting their use to off-peak periods. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District successfully piloted this approach between 2012 and 2014, and San Diego Gas & Electric began switching customers to the new model in March. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric plan to follow their lead by 2020.
Can Surge Pricing Cut Energy Use at Home?

I like to call this tactic douchbaggery for your own good.

 

[depotoo]

Yeah, they offer that here in Fl. Didn’t take them up on it.

 

[Dekster]

Yeah, they offer that here in Fl. Didn’t take them up on it.

Yeah some friends of mine absolutely loathed it in PA when they put the lock out box on the hotwater heater. They saved like $1.50 a month and only had hot water between like 10 pm and 5 am. Once you put it on, you could not get them to remove it ever.

Any ways, a lot of east coast municipal utilities already have peak time consumption built into their contracts. They take the 4 highest consumption windows in the year and base all electric prices off that rate for the whole year, so you are really being overcharged every other day of the year if you live in one of those areas.

 

[depotoo]

Yeah, they offer that here in Fl. Didn’t take them up on it.

Yeah some friends of mine absolutely loathed it in PA when they put the lock out box on the hotwater heater. They saved like $1.50 a month and only had hot water between like 10 pm and 5 am. Once you put it on, you could not get them to remove it ever.

Any ways, a lot of east coast municipal utilities already have peak time consumption built into their contracts. They take the 4 highest consumption windows in the year and base all electric prices off that rate for the whole year, so you are really being overcharged every other day of the year if you live in one of those areas.

Yeah, that was my thought, I did not want to be locked out when I wanted it.
Fortunately, we do have some of lowest pricing in Florida, with Fpl. Supposedly amongst some of the lowest in the country, as well.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I love that Texas has its own grid independent of all the other robber barons.

 

[Treeshepherd]

Each day, energy use in California peaks exactly when you’d expect it to -- in the late afternoon, when people are coming home from work, cranking up their air conditioning, making dinner, watching TV and doing household chores.

But generating power during those hours is both costly and wasteful. “To meet peak demand, utilities have to turn on more generators, and the generators they turn on last are the least efficient and most polluting,” says Edward Randolph, deputy executive director for energy and climate policy at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

That’s why CPUC is moving to “time-of-use rates” -- akin to “surge pricing” on Uber -- which charge customers more between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weeknights, with the goal of shifting their use to off-peak periods. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District successfully piloted this approach between 2012 and 2014, and San Diego Gas & Electric began switching customers to the new model in March. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric plan to follow their lead by 2020.
Can Surge Pricing Cut Energy Use at Home?

I like to call this tactic douchbaggery for your own good.

PG@E is building more energy storage capacity. But I like the idea of home/business energy storage. Some hotels in San Francisco have huge custom battery systems (they work out a deal with PG@E to run off batteries during peak demand hours). For the homeowner, there's the Tesla Powerwall;
Tesla Powerwall

What if your refrigerator had its own internal battery, charging itself during off-peak demand hours?

My county set up its own Redwood Coast Energy Authority, taking the energy procurement responsibility away from PG@E. While PG@E continues to maintain the lines and manage the billing, the RCEA decides how much power we need and who to buy it from. Part of that decision is made by the customer. For a little extra, I decided to go with 100% renewable. I'm running on solar power, essentially, even though I'm a renter and there's no solar panels on my roof.

My dollars are being used to install more solar panels, somewhere. That's great, but it creates what's known as the duck curve (massive amounts of power flooding the grid during mid-day when people are away from home).