You may not be able to afford to buy all of your electricity - Page 5 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

Piotrsko · 08-13-2021, 11:26 AM

Afaik on the new snitch meters NV installed there is a provision to run backwards, but it is only enabled by having power generation contracts, and it is controlled through communication through the wires or wifi.

oil pan 4 · 08-13-2021, 04:07 PM

The smart meters only count up. Any curent flow is counted as consumption.
The co-Gen meters have the electronics to sense which direction current is flowing.

oil pan 4 · 09-07-2021, 06:33 PM

Newest scheme to screw electrical customers and a possible explanation of the coop suddenly turning extremely anti solar juat about over night:

https://www.abqjournal.com/2418162/s...gs-begin.html?

These are the guys that caused maine electricity customers bills to at least double and the only additional services they seem to offer is extended power outages.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr · 09-07-2021, 09:49 PM

Maybe going off-grid, and cutting power consumption as much as possible, is the way to go.

oil pan 4 · 09-07-2021, 11:42 PM

Have an electric car that uses up to 400kwh per month, that makes it really difficult to go off grid.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr · 09-08-2021, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Have an electric car

Whenever I see claims about EVs being the one-size-fits-all for the future, it's always worth to remind their impact to the grid. Sourcing and distributing all the power they would need is more troublesome than whatever the mainstream media says.

redpoint5 · 09-08-2021, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Whenever I see claims about EVs being the one-size-fits-all for the future, it's always worth to remind their impact to the grid. Sourcing and distributing all the power they would need is more troublesome than whatever the mainstream media says.

Do you have more info on that?

EVs hold some promise to make the grid more efficient by bringing up baseload demand. Bringing up baseload demand has the effect of reducing peak demand, which is much more costly to produce. I expect that with proper incentives like Time Of Use pricing, or real time pricing, along with smart chargers, EVs will greatly improve grid efficiency, which should reduce the overall cost of electricity.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr · 09-08-2021, 06:31 PM

Not sure to which extent a massive adpotion of EVs would make the grid more efficient. Well, since the grid in my country relies mostly on hydro power, and the water level at some dams have recently been too low, many thermal powerplants either coal-fired or oil-fired (and a handful NG-fired ones) were turned on more often than usual, increasing the pricing accordingly to their usage. Even though nowadays I see more PHEVs and even all-electric cars more often within the last 3 years, I wouldn't hold my breath for any increase to their market share to become really favorable to any improvement to the overall efficiency of the grid.

redpoint5 · 09-08-2021, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Not sure to which extent a massive adpotion of EVs would make the grid more efficient. Well, since the grid in my country relies mostly on hydro power, and the water level at some dams have recently been too low, many thermal powerplants either coal-fired or oil-fired (and a handful NG-fired ones) were turned on more often than usual, increasing the pricing accordingly to their usage. Even though nowadays I see more PHEVs and even all-electric cars more often within the last 3 years, I wouldn't hold my breath for any increase to their market share to become really favorable to any improvement to the overall efficiency of the grid.

It all depends on the adoption rate of EVs too. We're at 3% of sales here in the US, and that includes PHEVs. It took a decade to reach that market share. If all of a sudden EV sales massively jumped, that might put strain on current baseload generation as well as peak generation. Instead, if electricity demand gradually grows and is forecast correctly, baseload will expand to meet growth.

What I really want is a smart EVSE (EV charger) with an app that lets me buy electricity at real time pricing. I set a price at which I want my car to charge, and it automatically begins when pricing meets that threshold. An alert pages out to me when pricing rises above some threshold I set so I can curtail my electricity use. This alone would help to stabilize the grid and reduce overall cost.

The story of that idiot in Texas that got a $15,000 bill is only that, a lesson an idiot learns by being wasteful in an emergency. Digging into the story more, I learned that she used in 2 days the same amount of electricity I use in a month in my 5 bedroom house, all during an energy shortage. She also received communication from her utility strongly encouraging her to switch providers in anticipation of the skyrocketing rates.