India To Cut Daytime Power Tariffs, Raise Fees For Night Use (reuters.com) 79
India will cut tariffs for daytime power use but charge a premium when electricity demand peaks during the night, in a bid to manage surging demand and boost the use of renewable energy. From a report: The new policy, outlined by the federal power ministry, will come into effect from April 2024 for commercial and industrial consumers and a year later for most other consumers except those in the agricultural sector. It is aimed at encouraging price-sensitive consumers to run their air-conditioners for fewer hours at night, which would in turn reduce the strain on overworked fossil-fuel power plants and lower the risk of nighttime power cuts. It would also help slash emissions.
India faced its worst electricity shortages in six years during the year ended March 2023, as searing heat and a surge in economic activity meant supply was not able to keep up with demand that grew at its fastest pace in 33 years. During so-called "solar hours", tariffs will be 10%-20% less than normal levels, while tariffs during peak night hours when air-conditioning use is cranked up after people come home from work will be 10-20% higher.
India faced its worst electricity shortages in six years during the year ended March 2023, as searing heat and a surge in economic activity meant supply was not able to keep up with demand that grew at its fastest pace in 33 years. During so-called "solar hours", tariffs will be 10%-20% less than normal levels, while tariffs during peak night hours when air-conditioning use is cranked up after people come home from work will be 10-20% higher.
How is this supposed to boost renewables? (Score:3)
Why the hell would I put a solar panel on my roof if the power is cheapest during the day? The cheaper daytime power is, the longer it takes to reach a ROI point.
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The price on the gross market is already variable. It can even go into the negatives when there is too much solar/wind.
What you are talking about is different: this is about you having a contract to resell your electricity to the grid at an agreed price, even if it doesn't make financial sense for the grid operator. This is what artificially makes your roof solar panel attractive, but it is not a given.
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If power is less expensive during the day, that's when it will get used - and the more true that is, the less you depend on non-renewables that tend to fail after sunset.
And if you can install a battery pack, you can have your small home solar keep the AC going through the night on power you collected during the day. The more expensive nighttime power is, the more sense the purchase of that battery system makes.
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>and the more true that is, the less you depend on non-renewables that tend to fail after sunset.
Correction:
"the less you depend on non-renewables because renewables
tend to fail after sunset."
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Solar doesn't work at night. But other than that I don't know what other renewables you are referring to. Most land-based wind resources are stronger at night, when electricity demands are lower. [energy.gov] Geothermal, hydro, tidal, biofuel, those all work at night too.
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Hydro is 24/7 indeed, but you need to have appropriate geography nearby. I'm not sure why they're claiming land-based wind is stronger at night, since generally surface wind speeds peak in the early afternoon and are waning by twilight as the surface cools relative to the air above it. Tidal power has yet to be widely deployed and my understanding is India's tidal power capacity is around 10GW. India uses something around 210 GW peak.
So realistically, you get wind (mostly) and solar (entirely) during the
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Indeed, wind seems to die down, or at least get less turbulent [google.com], after the sun sets. From what I recall wind typically is at a minimum just before dawn. Balloonists also seem to know this. [hudsonhotairaffair.com]
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The Washoe Zephyr in NW Nevada would reliably startup around 4 PM and go until midnight, but it would die off sometime after that.
So from say 2 AM to sunrise you would have nothing renewable.
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surface wind speeds peak in the early afternoon and are waning by twilight as the surface cools relative to the air above it.
That might be the case at YOUR place. But in general: completely wrong. Every coast e.g. has strong winds, particularly strong after sunrise and a few hours after sunset. Then the question is: are you in a general wind rich region, like trade winds. Or mountain regions, more precisely, regions which slope upward. Then you have river valleys, depending on time of the year, you might ha
Re:How is this supposed to boost renewables? (Score:4, Informative)
Demand shifting.
This is India, not Indiana. People don't put solar panels on roofs in a country which largely doesn't even have working sanitation. It may surprise you that one size doesn't fit all.
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This is India, not Indiana. People don't put solar panels on roofs in a country which largely doesn't even have working sanitation.
Exactly the opposite. People have only weak incentive to put solar panels on roofs in a country that has reliable electric power, but people in countries with an unreliable electric grid have strong incentive to put solar panels on roofs.
It may surprise you that one size doesn't fit all.
Exactly.
https://www.npr.org/sections/g... [npr.org]
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People have only weak incentive to put solar panels on roofs in a country that has reliable electric power,
I contend, contrary to your claim, that the vast, VAST majority of residential solar panels are being installed at locations previously served by reliable electric power. I concede that government meddling is likely the cause of that decision, when the govt subsidies the mfg, the training of the installers, subsidizes the price paid for the panels, and then forces local electric company to pay a fixed, premium rate for all the excess electricity you shove back on the power grid, whether or not the utility n
Re:How is this supposed to boost renewables? (Score:5, Informative)
...but the point is where are the most panels being installed? Answer: first-world nations, not third-world world countries.
Depends on how you measure. The number one country for amount of solar capacity being installed per year-- ahead by a factor of three-- is China. Do you count China as a third-world country?
India installs about half as much solar power per year as the US does (50 MW, compared to 91 MW for the US in 2021). On the other hand, the US has seven times the GDP of India, so proportionately, we should be installing seven time as much solar power as India, not two.
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Technically, China is a second-world country, aligned with the "East" (Those under the influence of the CCCP and the PRC). India is a third-world country, that is, non-aligned. The first-world countries are those countries aligned with the "West" (Western Europe and North America).
Though, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the lack of consistency in language usage, I'm fighting a losing battle trying to distinguish the terms developed, developing, and unde
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That is an American bullshit definition of 1st, 2nd and 3rd world, that never really was used in the rest of the world.
First world: highly industrialised countries. By coincident, many belonging to the "western block", but not all.
Second world: mostly agrarian developed, in the industrialisation phase. By coincident, many in the eastern block, but not all.
Third world: poorly developed countries, particularly infrastructure, by coincident a good deal not aligned to any block.
Fourth world: so poor that they a
Re: How is this supposed to boost renewables? (Score:1)
Flat wrong. First world was NATO. Second world was Comblok. Third world was everyone else. In the west the definition drifted amongst the normals to third world being synonymous with shithole. If you asked any of those idiots what second world meant, they had no idea.
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India installs about half as much solar power per year as the US does (50 MW, compared to 91 MW for the US in 2021)
But if you consider energy consumption (1.6 vs 4 GWh), this represents almost 50% greater fraction of their needs (3% vs 2%). At this pace, India will be solar powered much faster than the US.
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Answer: first-world nations, not third-world world countries.
Obviously. As there are no third world countries anymore.
But I guess that was not your point. My point is: your idea might have been true 5 years, oe even 3 years ago. But right now? I doubt it. In many asian countries solar installations are booming.
(poor people tend to live in apartments, not stand alone homes with yards...
Depends what you call poor. And it obviously depends on country. I doubt in Thailand e.g. a poor person can afford an apartm
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Exactly the opposite. People have only weak incentive to put solar panels on roofs in a country that has reliable electric power, but people in countries with an unreliable electric grid have strong incentive to put solar panels on roofs.
It sounds conceptually correct, but is practically wrong. People who live in areas with unreliable power are overwhelmingly poor and can't afford the luxury of taking energy generation into their own hands.
The article you linked points this out beautifully. Nearly all of India's solar generation is done via large industrial powerplants. Rooftop solar is borderline non-existent in the country. India is lagging behind peers in rollout of rooftop solar even with government incentives.
People's wealth is an over
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People have only weak incentive to put solar panels
Forgot to address this point. Reliability of electricity is not a defining incentive for solar panels, PERIOD. It's an incentive for diesel generators. Solar panels on rooves do not make the power dispatchable when needed, for that you also need energy storage mechanism. Such installations are currently rare enough that for the purposes of green energy discussions they can be said not to exist at all.
Third world nations which do use solar to create dispatchable power almost universally *don't* do it at any
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People have only weak incentive to put solar panels on roofs [when grid power is reliable].
Forgot to address this point. Reliability of electricity is not a defining incentive for solar panels, PERIOD. It's an incentive for diesel generators.
You're correct that it is an incentive for diesel generators (and in fact a lot of homes in India have diesel generators), but it's ALSO an incentive for solar. Both have places in the market for power that isn't interrupted when the grid stops producing, and both are used.
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Demand shifting.
This is India, not Indiana
This is absolutely is what many people want for North Americans as well. The power company will tell you when to use electricity. There will be increasing penalties for choosing on your own.
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It's like accusing the restaurant of telling you what to eat by charging more for steak than chicken. 'How dare you penalize me for preferring steak!!
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That's a funny take since the price of everything else already depends on when and where you buy it.
It's like accusing the restaurant of telling you what to eat by charging more for steak than chicken. 'How dare you penalize me for preferring steak!!
It's more like charging more for chicken for dinner than for breakfast, which is more defendable than if your grocer priced food by time of day.
You think it's a great idea for electricity, how about water? They will tell you when to shower or flush LOL (and this actually happens too, and nobody considers it a good thing).
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But I do think variable residential electricity pricing needs to be optional, and/or phased in to work correctly, because right now nothing is built around variable pricing. EV's and some major appliances have timers to charge at night w
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But they do say not to water your lawn in the afternoon, since it just evaporates, which is reasonable.
Lol, that is not reasonable. Obviously you water in the afternoon, depending what you call afternoon perhaps.
Road tolls and street parking have different prices depending on time of day not because of "supply and demand" but because of shaping the bahaviour of the users/customers. You simply do not want people to block the parking places all day long, you want many peple coming and going and do their busin
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Time based pricing doesn't make sense for water because it's not produced as it is consumed, it's stored in vast quantities while sanitization proceeds at a steady pace.
We used to have something similar for electricity, where there was a certain amount of base generation and consumers got preferential access to it at a flat rate, because domestic meters couldn't do time based metering. As technology developed it became more feasible to do metering down to short blocks of time, typically half an hour.
Consume
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We used to have something similar for electricity, where there was a certain amount of base generation and consumers got preferential access to it at a flat rate, because domestic meters couldn't do time based metering. As technology developed it became more feasible to do metering down to short blocks of time, typically half an hour.
Consumers can benefit from this, because instead of being charged a flat rate that covers the supplier for the average price over a long period of time, they can take advantage of short term pricing.
The question is, how is the latter an improvement over the former? Before you used to flip a switch when you wanted, and now you are "encouraged" to flip that switch at times that may be less convenient to you, the customer. Perhaps if you are up all night and sleep all day you can save money this way, but I'm doubtful that the average consumer actually benefits from the new regime.
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It's better for the environment and doesn't outsource the cost of convenience to other people.
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If electric power were as easy to store as water then time of use wouldn't be an issue.
I agree. This is why generation systems should be designed to supply power when people most want it.
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OMG no! The communist horrors!
Oh, wait, electricity in most places in North America is already priced by time of day, and sometimes by time of year.
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39 Million of us in California pay depending on time of day and time of year. We have different rates for winter and summer and we have different rates, referred to as on peak, off peak and super off peak. Been this way for years.
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39 Million of us in California pay depending on time of day and time of year. We have different rates for winter and summer and we have different rates, referred to as on peak, off peak and super off peak. Been this way for years.
Yes, and we all know how reliable your grid is. Would probably collapse if you did not do that, but that does not mean it is something everyone should emulate.
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I can't speak for the entire state, but I can't recall the last time my power went off in San Diego. I do however recall the last time I heard of another state's power going down though...
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Last year I religiously did my wash and dry after 9pm to take advantage of the lower rates. The EOY report on savings was less than $5.
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I perhaps shouldn't have said "most". I don't know what the situation is in every US state. California, New York and Texas have variable rates (Texas famously so). I just looked up Florida (variable). Pennsylvania seems to have opt-in variable rates.
It's really not unusual to pay more for a commodity when it's in high demand and/or short supply. That's called a market economy. It's not "the power company telling you when to use electricity," it's the power company allowing you to participate in the market.
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I perhaps shouldn't have said "most". I don't know what the situation is in every US state. California, New York and Texas have variable rates (Texas famously so). I just looked up Florida (variable). Pennsylvania seems to have opt-in variable rates.
Yes, and I live in Manitoba where we have an abundance of relatively cheap and consistent hydro power. It is easy to take for granted but I do understand not everywhere is so lucky.
It's really not unusual to pay more for a commodity when it's in high demand and/or short supply. That's called a market economy.
High demand and short supply should naturally lead to increased production over time in a functional market economy. The actual issue here is that as steady state generation (hydro, nuclear, coal, and potentially nat gas) is replaced by variable generation, the power being produced is often not produced in sync with that demand
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Manitoba Hydro is a crown corporation and an exporter of electricity to the US. They charge you a flat rate, but if you use more electricity at peak hours there's less to export. If more people use more power at peak times, there's less to export. That loss of revenue needs to be made up, either in a higher retail flat rate or in taxes.
It's the same as anywhere else that has a flat rate: supply and demand still applies, but the power company averages it out over the usage patterns of the group. With variabl
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Manitoba Hydro is a crown corporation and an exporter of electricity to the US. They charge you a flat rate, but if you use more electricity at peak hours there's less to export.
And they still buy it cheaper than I can.
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Your information is out of date. Most people in India have access to a toilet, close to 100% in fact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Although the Indian government has built more toilets, Indians do not necessarily use them, and continue to openly defecate[5][6][7] for a variety of reasons - poor quality or non-functioning toilets, reluctance to deviate from cultural norms, poverty, and government corruption. For example, despite having access to a toilet, about 522 million people practised open defecation in India in 2014.
So having toilets in 97% of homes is literally equating to 60% of the population using them (2014 numbers).
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More recent data suggests that the vast majority do use toilets. Education works.
It was down to about 15% last time I looked, still too high but they are dealing with it. It's not an excuse to not also address other issues.
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Perhaps you should apply the same critics you applied to your parent, to your self?
Did you actually read what you quoted? Read it again ... (* facepalm *)
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Your information is out of date. Most people in India have access to a toilet, close to 100% in fact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Having a toilet in the home does not mean that toilet flushes to a sanitary sewer that does not pollute rivers.
Arguing a Wikipedia fact with a Wikipedia fact:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Your information is out of date. Most people in India have access to a toilet, close to 100% in fact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Having a plumbed in shitter is not the same as having modern running sanitation. Your article is irrelevant, my quote was not intended to literally mean solar panels only apply to houses with toilets, but rather more generally that investment in energy is not done by people who largely live in abject poverty. You can look up that stat yourself.
There's a reason India's very large solar generation is done almost exclusively at large power plants and industrial sites, and not littering every household like ric
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Because you still save money, it just takes a longer.
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The cheaper daytime power is, the longer it takes to reach a ROI point.
That is a fallacy.
The ROI is the same time, regardless what the power costs.
You buy it today. You calculate it on what you save if you buy it today. The ROI is only dependent on what you pay, and not on what the power actually costs.
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Why the hell would I put a solar panel on my roof
You, as a consumer in India, won't. India doesn't have as many big houses for the middle class that can be fit with PV panels. India has less consumer solar (panels on your roof) and more utility sized solar farms.
From TFS:
and boost the use of renewable energy
What is happening here is that the pricing will encourage moving some consumption to the daytime, when renewables (solar in particular) can supply it.
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Who do you expect to pay for the battery or fossil fuel plant you need to keep your power running at night?
Makes sense (Score:2)
This is a good news, and is actually a good way to take advantage of solar. It's just a bit crazy to see India leading the way, and Western countries not doing that (as far as I know, for the countries I know about at least, feel free to correct me).
It is not as if this is the most innovative idea of the century either, it really makes so much sense it makes you wonder why it is not that way everywhere there is solar/wind involved. Price could be indexed for the consumer based on electricity scarcity (and n
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True but in India there is a government decision, affecting at least the public sector generation/distribution (private sector generation in India is 33%, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ). The Indian government can coerce its public companies to set prices according to political goals, while in Western countries customers get the market price. There is some sort of electricity price control in some EU countries, but someone more knowledgable would have to compare that with the situation in I
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Western countries have government utility rate authorities, just like some other authorities. For example, in California, PG&E had recent rate increases denied by the utilities commission, and in the insurance industry, State Farm had their proposed insurance rate increases refused by the insurance board, so State Farm has decided to stop writing new policies in the state of California.
Energy subsidies in poor countries. (Score:1)
Western bureaucracy (Score:2)
I suggested the same idea to my City Council member in Los Angeles 2 years ago. Of course, it went nowhere as I didn't have any bribes prepared.
Bravo, India.
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> Of course, it went nowhere as I didn't have any bribes prepared.
Gotta bribe more. Give the deadbeat offspring of a council-person a cushy job. No law against that as long as you don't write your influence motive down.
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City Council? You electric utility is controlled at the state level, not at the city level...
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And it has to abide by the CPUC (California Public Utility Commissioner).
Peak Shaving (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know the net breakdown of electricity consumption in India, but this is probably a bad idea. One big commercial electricity consumer is data centers and many implement something called "peak shaving" [next-kraftwerke.com] which is to run their diesel generators during times when the market price for electricity peaks. If India goes ahead with this plan there are going to be a lot of generators running every night.
There are much more environmentally friendly ways to implement peak shaving such as deploying giant banks of batteries (such as Tesla MegaPacks), but most don't do that because of the much higher up-front capital and the long ROI. Not to mention you still need gens if the requirement is to survive an extended outage.
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So, how many banks of batteries do you want to build, to provide, let's say, 1% of the power needed at night?
How do you charge them during daytime, when your grid actually is struggling to provide the power daytime users demand?
Sorry, you people are so delusional, it is not even funny.
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Smart meters (Score:2)
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I recently read that Germany (of all countries) doesn't have smart meters at all
That is nonsense.
Of course we have smart meters.
But: the switch from ordinary meters is slow. As normal households have no real benefit from smart meters. At least that is what the public perceives. Then we have the horde of people who think with smart meters you can spy on one. Or at least know when one is at home and when not.
and some countries have double meters, one for peak hours and one for off-peak.
Every country that has
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But obviously for ordinary households that has no real benefit either.
So without a smart meter consumers can't take advantage of hourly contracts.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood regarding Germany or the article was old or incorrect.
But my point was that ordinary meters occasionally consisting of multiple meters is still common in many countries, and this was really about India.
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So without a smart meter consumers can't take advantage of hourly contracts.
Households usually do not have hourly contacts.
Running a washing machine once a week is not worth the effort.
Off peak (Score:2)
Solar is cheap, intermittent and unreliable, so this decision makes some sense as more solar is deployed there will be a power glut during the day and lean times at night. Does this also mean that solar power will be paid less and those generating reliable power will be paid more? This will actually create an incentive for the deployment of generation which operates in the non-peak times unless of course you use the night peak price to subsidise the deployment of even more solar.
If you're only at home durin
California been doing this forever! (Score:2)
It's called time of use and the most expensive time to use electric is between 4pm-9pm while the cheapest time is between 12a-5am. This has been this way for a long time here.
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Indeed, here in the SW USA this has been normal for many years now and lately there is SO MUCH PV generation that you get a big break in winter. Here are the residential tariffs (in pretty Joe 6-Pack notation) for APS (Arizona's biggest utility and for-profit) and SRP (Phoenix-area only and non-profit):
https://www.aps.com/en/Residen... [aps.com]
https://www.srpnet.com/price-p... [srpnet.com]
Notice the "Super Off-Peak" in winter being VERY cheap when air conditioning isn't required and On-Peak being in the afternoons when PV is goi
Smart meters? (Score:2)
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Call Centers / Helpdesks (Score:1)
The peak loads are probably from all of the helpdesk / call centers / offshored workers toiling away in the middle of the night servicing their western hemisphere customers.
Bring that work back to the US and power consumption in India in the evening/overnight hours will drop.