And the verbiage that many will glance over yet will have the greatest future impacts for all alive is: "...includes an energy storage system..."

Todays U.S. meeting "Roundtable on Ratepayer Protection Pledge" with the U.S. President himself leading that meeting garnished commitments from Big Tech as it relates to energy. In time Big Tech Energy divisions will be thing and some citizens will be paying their utilities bill to them.

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conradev 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In Texas and Massachusetts you can actually pick your power provider while paying the natural monopoly for the wires. In time I hope we all can do this.

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ploxiln 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is how it works in NYC, but the wires are almost twice as expensive as the power. (If you add taxes and the numerous weird fees, the total bill is a solid 3x the cost of the power.) It's really all about the grid maintenance and management these days.

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treis 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We do this for gas. IMHO you end up paying monopoly rates for the pipes and then stupid game prices for the gas. Maybe the savvy consumer comes out ahead but seems like a net negative to me.

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hvb2 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not monopoly rates, it's actual utility rates. The only problem here is if the utility is allowed to make a profit. Gas pipes, electric lines and internet connections are like roads in today's society. Can't really live without them.

So assuming the pipe maintenance is done at cost, with no money not being spent on the network. What would your better net positive solution even look like?

	▲	ZeroGravitas 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		People can live without gas pipes. One of the big tasks at the moment is planning to stop people building new gas pipes that won't be used enough to justify the price and how to phase out the existing gas pipes so the pricing doesn't enter a "death spiral" as people start leaving the network, leaving the government to bail it out.

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samarthr1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Heh, wouldnt NYC be best case scenario for a grid? It has high density, large number consumer base etc?

If only they could sort the underground cabling...

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sgc 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We do that in Northern California as well. There are only a couple of options though.

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jeffbee 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There are large solar power stations on the grid in California owned by tech firms so you may indeed already be paying, indirectly, Apple for energy.