Green Mountain "Un-utility"

[mspohr]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/business/energy-environment/green-mountain-home-batteries.html

Many electric utilities are putting up lots of new power lines as they rely more on renewable energy and try to make grids more resilient in bad weather. But a Vermont utility is proposing a very different approach: It wants to install batteries at most homes to make sure its customers never go without electricity.

The company, Green Mountain Power, proposed buying batteries, burying power lines and strengthening overhead cables in a filing with state regulators on Monday. It said its plan would be cheaper than building a lot of new lines and power plants.

The plan is a big departure from how U.S. utilities normally do business. Most of them make money by building and operating power lines that deliver electricity from natural gas power plants or wind and solar farms to homes and businesses. Green Mountain — a relatively small utility serving 270,000 homes and businesses — would still use that infrastructure but build less of it by investing in television-size batteries that homeowners usually buy on their own.

 

[LoudMusic]

Interesting. Seems like they'd be better served to do small regional batteries, perhaps at substations or at the edge of neighborhoods.

I'm in a tiny new development in Arkansas several miles outside of city limits and wondered first about home batteries, but then about having a larger more cost effective battery stack for the whole neighborhood.

 

[mspohr]

Interesting. Seems like they'd be better served to do small regional batteries, perhaps at substations or at the edge of neighborhoods.

I'm in a tiny new development in Arkansas several miles outside of city limits and wondered first about home batteries, but then about having a larger more cost effective battery stack for the whole neighborhood.

Green Mountain seems to think that individual home batteries are more cost effective as well as providing distributed (down to the individual house level) backup.
I assume they have costed it out. Would be interesting to see their calculations.
Tesla seems to have adopted a similar strategy with their home batteries assembled into a virtual power plant in Texas and California.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Green Mountain seems to think that individual home batteries are more cost effective as well as providing distributed (down to the individual house level) backup.
I assume they have costed it out. Would be interesting to see their calculations.
Tesla seems to have adopted a similar strategy with their home batteries assembled into a virtual power plant in Texas and California.

Batteries as buffers would seem sensible at every level, reducing peak loads, adding resiliency and redundancy both for generation and consumption.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Green Mountain seems to think that individual home batteries are more cost effective as well as providing distributed (down to the individual house level) backup.
I assume they have costed it out. Would be interesting to see their calculations.
Tesla seems to have adopted a similar strategy with their home batteries assembled into a virtual power plant in Texas and California.

Well, it's a utility, so everything they spend gives them profit.

Not sure it's the most cost-effective solution in terms of lowering distribution costs, but it is the most flexible solution, and it gives households back-up.

A key question is whether people would be able to choose a different battery and lower their monthly service cost.

If this goes through it will be very interesting to see the impact.