LadyOnikara
Member
Yeah, we can't even get the power company to stop burning the state down, much less get lowered rates.
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Switch to hourly pricing for charging at home
- Thread starter Mikedrives
- Start date
At this point I don't believe that EV's are an issue with the grid, especially when cities all over the place are building new housing developments, yet no one brings up grid demands for them. There is no problem producing the power, the problem is the permitting issue as it takes way too long. It's insanely ridiculous that in the 21st Century brown or black out conditions exist with our grid during the summer months, supposedly due to air conditioners. Don't sell them or make them to use less power, if they are an issue. Like it or not the world will be all electric one day, so instead of playing catch up our countries need to plan ahead.
SDG&E almost makes PG&E seem like St Francis giving alms to the poor.
Get a load of their "discount" rate for EVs.
Super-off peak (12AM to 6am) 0.284. Regular daytime 0.497, peak hours, 4pm to 9pm every day including weekends and holidays(!!!), 0.832. Even Hawaii, which has to import liquid petroleum to generate (very expensive) isn't that high.
And since so many people switched to solar, they killed off the economics for new solar with NEM 3, but that isn't enough, their new proposal to CPUC (nearly guaranteed to be passed as CPUC is complete regulatory capture), will impose even higher 'access fees' per month ($100+), by your income which can't be offset at all by solar. And that will apply to everyone with existing solar.
The problem in the summer now is not generation capacity most of the time, it's back country power lines in hot fire prone areas. They have to shut down major transmission lines. If they don't and it burns, the climate now can, and did, incinerate many towns. Large cities in CA get much of their power from pretty far away (where it's generated). LADWP has transmission lines all the way up to Washington State (AC and DC) for hydroelectric power. Much solar in central valley and deep deserts, far away from cities with demand. CA population is bigger than Spain.
And yet the power companies could have designed their lines to all be underground 100 years ago yet didn't. Now they want to do this but are raising rates to customers to do it. They've had decades and decades of profits and we are supposed to pay for this upgrade?! Just wow!
Wow! It would be less expensive to power your house with a diesel generator during regular and peak hours.
$5 per gallon fuel at 40 kWh per gallon in a 30% efficient diesel generator works out to 41.6¢ per kWh, excluding maintenance. If you recapture the heat from the engine coolant for hot water or space heating, you can probably bump it up to 60% efficiency.
it's not feasible to underground transmission lines far out in the backcountry where these are. There are some big mountains. The towers aren't even accessible by any road often, they were helicoptered in.
A2be
Member
You know, the power "company" is not a regular company in a free market. It's what economists call a "franchise monopoly", a monopoly created by the government. In theory, that's why it will supposedly be regulated in the public interest. ... and why it is called a regulated monopoly.
Real life is often not so kind.
It's all a rather political mess in California nowadays, where the very entity (government) that created the monopoly in the first place, and controls the regulatory authority on that utility, sets up a theatrical act where it plays like the "company" is somehow some kind of private company that is not guided/restricted/controlled in many many ways by the government, as if government itself could escape responsibility for the mess. Rinse, lather, repeat.
But either way, even if you were to have some sort of magical "good regulation" and everything were to come up strawberries and unicorns, burying power lines costs real money. And the way that works is that ratepayers who connect to that electrical power are gonna face whatever regulated-monopoly price structure that the utility regulator (government) determines is okay, given the many rulz that the State lawmakers (government) have put on that so-called company.
I've always wondered what will happen to rates in the future, when EVs are as popular as ICE, or being sold exclusively. There will be so many people taking advantage of off peak rates to charge, that there is no longer a dip in energy usage. Wonder how our rates will look then, when there are no more incentives for anything.One has nothing to do with the other. The benefits of leveling, or not, the power plant load curve during the day has huge implications for utilities and consumers alike. If we don't take advantage of charging EVs off peak as much as possible, the grid will be overwhelmed forcing investment in more power plants and/or running inefficient peakers even more. Charging off peak is not at all inconvenient for most drivers with access to charging at home. EV charging is a great opportunity - if we're collectively smart...
The potential impact of electric vehicles on global energy systems
Electric vehicles are unlikely to create a power-demand crisis but could reshape the load curve. Here’s how to bend that curve to your advantage.www.mckinsey.com
Eric33432
Member
If properly managed, it should make the grid more efficient by much more completely utilizing generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure that right now is not fully used during the off peak.
But you are right about there no longer being a dip. If the poco's could manage home EV charging like they can manage electric water heaters and other high load devices, but guarantee getting a full charge by the next morning, that might be a good thing for the grid.
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