Originally Posted by OVERKILL
I think the point is, does all of this Mickey Mouse nonsense, chasing the lowest rate, which will shift depending on loads, weather...etc make sense when you have the ability to produce reliable electricity that doesn't require such contortions? Is the goal simply high penetration of renewables or actual low emissions? Because burning gas because you want to run wind turbines isn't achieving the latter, but it sure seems like one [censored] of a way to create all kinds of wild costs and technical problems that impact operating profiles while doing the former
Per your TOU posit, while that sounds quite novel in theory, nobody is going to pile wet laundry into their dryer at 7AM before they shove off to work expecting the dryer to kick on sometime during the day so that they can capitalize on some rate perversion wrought by overzealous installation of solar, that's pie in the sky fantasy that could only come out of California. When we run laundry, it is two or three loads, which means there is human intervention, that doesn't work when off-peak occurs when nobody is home.
It isn't just the price spread that's the issue, it's the impact on the day-to-day things. Paying a premium to do laundry at the time we normally do now because the peak has shifted due to some moronic policy solely focused on its myopic agenda, is only going to get so much traction before people revolt, which is exactly what happened here in Ontario. You can only push people so far before they stop and toss you out on your ear. A solution peddled by charlatans is destined for failure, even if it is technically feasible. "Gas is the new green" is the current mantra, barring the oft cited "storage miracle" which is quite like fusion in that it is always just around the corner. Cold climates, like here, pose yet another problem, as most currently heat with gas and if we want to shift that to electric, you aren't doing that with solar and wind, the former doesn't align with the demand profile (morning and evening ramps) and the latter buggers off for days at a time, which means either perpetual reliance on methane or something else that can reliably fit the bill, unless of course emissions are non-issue, at which point then why aren't we just burning gas for everything?
You are paying for these wild cost one way or another already if you look at how they compare non TOU and TOU rate, they pad enough in the flat rate to guess how much you are running on average. As I said before, already happened for a few years, we were given a lower rate (around 2c/kwh year round) if we agree to 15 days of peak price at market rate (60c/kwh instead of 20c/kwh) a year so PG&E won't have to eat it. The market rate for those PG&E off the hook price? 60c/kwh instead of 20c/kwh, so you can decide to pay for 15 days peak at 60c/kwh so you avoid piling laundry at 7am or you pay 2c/kwh extra 247 365 the entire year and pile laundry as you please. Your 60c/kwh is there to pay for the shut down old dirty coal plant to stand by all year so you can do your laundry at 7am 3 load at a time during a heat storm with your AC on, when the outside temperature is 100F.
The point I am trying to make is, a diverse generation, not just renewable vs non renewable, is good for stability and prevent gouging or incident. Just look at that 60c/kwh peak, you realize this is how generation make a huge percentage of the money from. If you can avoid this kind of gouging by shaving off the peak, you are already ahead of the game. Data center can shutdown their bargain basement load, household can wait till 10pm to start their load, offices can freeze some ice to help reduce the next day's peak AC load, etc, without involving batteries and electric car. I'm intentionally skipping solar here because they tends to follow the peak, my examples only involve our current usage profile, before we even add solar or wind. All it takes is another Enron scheme to mess up our grid without wind or solar even.