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| ▲ | danans 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Tesla Electric customers report making as much as $150 a day Only on peak demand days, of which there are only a handful every year. I have Enphase batteries enrolled in an equivalent program, so I've tracked how much I make. Definitely not enough to make much of a dent in the payoff time for the batteries. But a nice perk nonetheless. | |
| ▲ | senectus1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | there is something really wrong with the economics of this. it shouldnt be celebrated. | | |
| ▲ | medler 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It seems like an unreservedly good thing if people with home batteries can help prevent brownouts and reduce prices for everyone else. Also, I believe the $150/day figure was during a rare heatwave event when prices had surged to 100x their typical value ($5/kWh). It’s like any other investment where you outlay cash upfront and hope to make it back over time, whether via reduced costs for your own electricity usage or selling it back to the grid when doing so is profitable. | |
| ▲ | imglorp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Makes sense to me. Peaker plants are typically expensive (even at idle) and polluting. During peak need, renting some capacity from subscribers already on your grid means you don't need to build another peaker plant. | |
| ▲ | beering 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What is wrong with this? | | |
| ▲ | AuthAuth 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Its an inefficient use of capital. | | |
| ▲ | thelastgallon an hour ago | parent [-] | | Whose capital? | | |
| ▲ | AuthAuth an hour ago | parent [-] | | The people buying the batteries and the government's capital. It only benefits the private util companies. The better option is for the government/utility company to build out the required storage for a fraction of the cost. | | |
| ▲ | coryrc 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | And when the power lines fall down in rural areas, how will people heat and power their homes? I guess they could buy some batteries, but then they'd sit idle most of the time. Maybe they could find some other profitable use and share the capital cost? | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > better option is for the government/utility company to build out the required storage for a fraction of the cost Ex ante, sure. Right now, the existing batteries are a sunk cost the utility didn’t have to pay capital costs for. The right answer is to do both. |
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| ▲ | senectus1 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | holy shit, yeah. you dont see a problem with earning "over $5 per kWh" ?!?! | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Be more explicit. What is wrong with this? It's not all the time, it's only in times of extreme need. Variable pricing like this enables all sorts of cost saving technologies that bring down the cost of the grid and generating power for everyone, by spending a lot for a very short time, instead of building tons of extra large assets that sit mostly idle. If somebody is providing a service that operates on the whole sale market, they deserve to get paid like all the other generators that are helping to keep the grid running in these times of need. |
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| ▲ | senectus1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | for single individuals to earn as much as (i assume US$) 150 a day means that the grid is horrendously unbalanced. hell if I emptied my 30kw into the grid in my state/country at the most expensive time I'd earn AU$21.00 to earn US$150 means either HUGE battery capacity (and transmission capacity) or utterly rediculous power pricing... both mean really lousy power supply and grid design.
I'm all for indipendance but the reality is we live in communities and count on the collective to rise us all up together. that sort of profit is a clear warning sign of a broken community. | | |
| ▲ | epistasis 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It depends a lot on the market, but before there were lots of batteries this was extremely typical in the Australian grid. You probably just weren't exposed to it as a consumer! Massive price fluctuations were the impetus for one of the first large scale grid batteries in Australia, and the batteries worked really well to solve it. It doesn't happen often, and nobody is getting paid $150 every day for their home battery. It's just for the extreme events. As more and more batteries are deployed the price swings will decrease. It's not a "broken community" it's just end consumers being able to help out in times of great grid need and getting compensated fairly for it. | |
| ▲ | ericd an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | California rate payers are being forced to essentially pay for fire insurance for CA residents who live in tinderbox areas, by way of PG&E rates, and burying lines that serve widely dispersed populations. That's the big difference. The vast majority of US residents have much lower utility rates. |
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| ▲ | thelastgallon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, only the billionaires have the right to make money. Think of the horror of any person making money by producing/storing energy! | |
| ▲ | ihsw 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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