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Germany To Compensate Power Users Hit by Grid Bottlenecks (bloomberg.com) 100

Germany will entice electric vehicle drivers to charge up when there's plenty of green power on the system by offering them cheap tariffs linked to wholesale prices. From a report: It's part of a push by the government to better integrate huge swings of renewable power onto the grid when it's particularly sunny or windy by ramping demand up or down to match. It's an example of the flexible tariffs that are popping up all over Europe aimed at consumers with electricity-hungry devices like heat pumps or cars that can help balance the network.

Europe's largest economy aims to produce 80% of its power from renewables by 2030, but is struggling to expand its network infrastructure. To reduce bottlenecks, consumers' network costs should be reduced by as much as $208 per year, or they can opt for a 60% reduction on their energy price and benefit from other levy exemptions for heat pumps, the regulator Bundesnetzagentur said in a statement Monday.

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Germany To Compensate Power Users Hit by Grid Bottlenecks

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  • by bryanandaimee ( 2454338 ) on Monday November 27, 2023 @01:19PM (#64035727) Homepage
    I can see cars being a simple time shift. Charge your car when it's cheap. But heat pumps? Everyone is using them at the same time for a reason. It's too hot or too cold.

    Young people might be able to easily put on a coat, or strip down and reap the savings, but for older people, if it's too hot they can be at serious risk and not know it because their bodies are already bad at regulating temperature. And they might turn off the cooler anyway because they are on a fixed income.

    • But when are the renewables generating the most power? Obviously not at night for solar. Isn't night calmer for wind in general, too? So there's got to be a different answer here.
      • Don't know about Germany, but here in Texas production for renewables:

        • * Solar peaks mid-day
        • * South (coastal) wind peaks evenings
        • * West (inland) wind peaks overnight

        See figure 5 on page 8 of Assessing solar and wind complementarity in Texas [rice.edu] for a chart showing this.

        This has lead to a number of utilities offering "free nights" electric plans to shift usage to the night - Compare Free Nights & Free Weekends Electricity Plans in Texas [electricityplans.com]

        I used to be on one of those plans - by scheduling my Model 3 to charge i

        • See figure 5 on page 8 of Assessing solar and wind complementarity in Texas for a chart showing this.

          Figure 3 shows a monthly average capacity factor around 50% for wind power, that is impressive.

          For Germany the problem is that they don't have the same kind of land area per person as Texas to allow a reliance on wind and sun for their energy. Perhaps with the right mix of wind and solar they can take advantage of some complementary output curves like those seen in Texas but Germans will need to build plenty of nuclear fission electric generating capacity or face rising energy costs, rising CO2 emissions,

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            ..aaaaand MacMann will post a comment about how nucular, that's N-U-C-U-L-A-R, power will solve all the world's problems, & bring about peace & harmony in the middle east... in 3, 2,... oh, wait. Too late!
          • No idea why you always come with that stupid meme: "Germany needs to build fission reactors"?
            Germany is a country.

            Power plants are build buy power companies, not buy countries/states/governments. At least not in Europe. No idea why you do not grasp that simple concept.

            By German law: power companies can not build nuclear fission reactors in Germany.
            That is not really difficult to grasp either.

            What ever you think to know about Germany and/or power production and/or nuclear fission: there wont be any commercia

        • Gotcha, where I live it tends to be windier during the day, and not being a meteorologist, I had no idea.
    • But heat pumps? Everyone is using them at the same time for a reason. It's too hot or too cold.

      The answer to this is generally a big tank of water or such to act as a thermal reservoir. Charge it when it is cheap, use it when you need it.

      Properly designed and insulated houses don't need much energy to heat/cool, and will stay at ideal temperatures for long periods of time.

      • Yeah, good insulation & energy conservation should be the starting point for buildings. Also makes them a whole lot more pleasant to live in.

        It's better to store hot water for whenever you need it. Water is many times more dense & therefore requires many times more energy to make it hot for things like washing, cooking, etc.. In many climates, passive solar water heaters work well enough to take off a large percentage of the energy load for heating water & they're cheap as chips, low-tech,
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        The other thing is heat pumps will not be overloading the grid. Charging cars might, because the draw a _lot_ more.

        • Hmmm...

          I actually think they're very similar. A 5 ton heat pump ~5kW (I found sources that would put it at anywhere from 4kW to 25kW, I think the latter is an outlier). That means that the heat pump would be pulling 21A, which is around 2/3rds to half of what an EV charging would pull.

          It wouldn't be heat pumps overloading the grid, or EVs, but the combination of the two.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      I can see cars being a simple time shift. Charge your car when it's cheap.

      If utilities and regulators keep pushing EV owners to delay charging then that will discourage EV ownership. One big selling point on getting an EV is the promise of charging anywhere at any time but that gets diluted if people tune into the evening news to see some call for EV owners to delay charging until 9PM (or whenever) or there's a risk of a blackout. That gets into another common selling point of an EV, the vehicle is a big battery from which to draw in case of a power outage. I expect calls for

      • that gets diluted if people tune into the evening news to see some call for EV owners to delay charging until 9PM (or whenever) or there's a risk of a blackout.

        Yeah, I don't think the evening news is going to be how this works. How it works on a "smart grid" is the grid can transmit near-term (say, next 16 hours) of pricing information, and then the device (your car) decides what to do, based on things like how likely you are to need to leave on a 250 mile trip before 6am tomorrow. Sure, for a while

        • Yeah, I don't think the evening news is going to be how this works.

          That's how it's been working in California so far. I read that on a site called "Slashdot".

          How it works on a "smart grid" is the grid can transmit near-term (say, next 16 hours) of pricing information, and then the device (your car) decides what to do, based on things like how likely you are to need to leave on a 250 mile trip before 6am tomorrow.

          To have a "smart" grid requires some installed infrastructure and agreements on protocols and such. One example is having meters capable of recording load at different times of day, and these are currently rare on residential service. I've seen examples of EVs that can delay charging for later but this is for the convenience of the owner, there's no existing protocol for the utility to enforce any delay on the car

          • The grand vision of a smart grid with integrated everything probably is a pipe dream, but it shouldn't be very hard for Tesla to push electricity pricing info to their cars and smartphone app as a refinement to the Scheduled Charging / Scheduled Departure they already have. (Do power utilities really not have a REST api for pricing info? The wholesale electricity market certainly must have something like that.)
            • This is great but pricing information is only so useful unless it is over the next 12 hours (this is actually mostly available but obviously is not highly accurate due to what is anticipated in terms of load and generation etc) If you do have 12 hours of future pricing available then you can choose the best time to charge. However it is a lot more complex than that as often electricity is sold to consumers by retailers who buy electricity in different ways and try to avoid wholesale raw prices by using diff
            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Maybe in the US. Not in Europe. Not everybody has a crumpling energy infrastructure.

          • One example is having meters capable of recording load at different times of day, and these are currently rare on residential service
            Only in your fucked up country.
            Sorry: in case you did not read the headline properly: it is about the country you hate the most. Sorry if your Grandpa died 70 years ago in "the big war".
            If I want a smart meter in Germany: I call the utility, they install it. That's it.
            https://www.enbw.com/intellige... [enbw.com]

        • Pricing information is 15 minutes, sometimes at the minute, not 16hours.
          In what stupid mindset do you live?

          If nothing special is happening, aka: I not need to power down a plant or ramp up one, then we have pretty good predictions how the power consumption and production will be next hours.

          But there might be a problem. A 300MW plant needs to emergency shut down. It was run on 200MW power.

          A 500MW plant on standby is connecting to the grid and powering up from its idle power of perhaps 100MW to 200MW, to matc

          • oops, seems I hit ctrl-v by accident.
            The middle part is: as it is my plant, I perfectly well know its load curve, and can ramp it up according to my bought sell orders. If it can ramp up output by 10MW per ten minutes, I can push out a sell order every minute for 10MW.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            You are confusing end-user prices and spot-market prices. Time-dependent end-user prices get _scheduled_.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          In the UK there are tariffs that guarantee at least X hours of cheap overnight electricity, so you are guaranteed to get at least Y kWh into your battery.

          Others use real-time pricing information to opportunistically charge when prices are low, or even negative.

          We now have tariffs that pay users for reducing energy consumption at peak times. Based on previous usage patterns at those times, any reduction on high demand days is converted to a credit on your bill.

          The only downside with all this is that you need

      • Bollocks. Owners will be delighted by the offer of even cheaper electricity to charge their cars at night when they're not using them. Ain't nobody getting annoyed as far as I can see.
        • Bollocks. Owners will be delighted by the offer of even cheaper electricity to charge their cars at night when they're not using them. Ain't nobody getting annoyed as far as I can see.

          Yet. They are not annoyed yet because these policies aren't impacting people much. This is because Germany is still in a transition from their reliance on fossil fuels to making everything electric.

          In broad strokes we can split the world's primary energy into four equal parts, coal, petroleum, natural gas, and "other". The other category includes wind, hydro, nuclear, and generally anything that isn't a fossil fuel. Again in broad strokes we see transportation burning petroleum, heating from natural gas

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I can see cars being a simple time shift. Charge your car when it's cheap.

        If utilities and regulators keep pushing EV owners to delay charging then that will discourage EV ownership. One big selling point on getting an EV is the promise of charging anywhere at any time

        Bullshit. This is about allowing people an _additional_ charging option like "charge when electricity is cheapest in the next 10 hours". This will increase EV adoption as they get even cheaper to run overall.

    • New homes need to be designed to with a "passive building" goal in mind, even if it is not 100% passive.For existing building, providing subsidies to make them more passive could also be useful. As for industry, then trying to marry heat produces with those that can leverage excess heat, in terms of geography, would also be something worth striving for.

      There will be enough demand for electricity from EVs, that we should be smarter on how we deal with our energy demands as a whole, reducing them where possib

    • by jsonn ( 792303 )
      Ironically, there is a lot of potential for load distribution with heat pumps exactly for this reason. There was an American study on how the ability to remotely timeshift AC can smooth out a good chunk of the morning and evening load peaks. Basically, a lot of people will wake up at the same time or come home and want their home cooled/heated properly. Being able to shift that a bit helps without impacting the individual comfort.
    • Peak demand in Texas is after 4 when the wind is low and solar is quickly dropping off. Assuming no one is home you can cool your house 2 or 3 degrees C before hand and then have the thermal mass of the house let you coast through the peak. It works surprisingly well in pilots I was involved. in.
    • But heat pumps? Everyone is using them at the same time for a reason.

      But you don't need to. A typical modern A energy rating house with a heatpump (houses with heatpumps in Europe by necessity have a high energy rating) has an insanely good heat retention capacity where over a period of many hours the temperature may only change a few degrees unless you open a window or do something like that.

      I could absolutely timeshift my heating to come on 2-3 hours earlier and to turn off during peak time without any change in comfort and with only a very minor drop in efficiency, easily

    • Heat pumps can be used to store excess heat in a hot water boiler, or a cold water tank.

      And they might turn off the cooler anyway because they are on a fixed income.
      Well, fixed incomeplus social aid and that covers your energy bill, unless you are a bitcoin miner.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      In Germany these heat pumps are mostly heating water, and are paired with a storage tank. The tank stores heat, so it's perfectly possible to heat the water at night when energy is cheap, and then use it the next day.

      Air conditioning for cooling is much less common. German houses tend to be better insulated than some of their peers though, and insulation helps keep the heat out too.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Moving the goalposts. That is basically dishonest. This is about high volume consumers like charging cars. Heat pumps are low volume consumers. Not only is your comment bereft of insight, it simply a lie by misdirection.

  • Hmm... Wasn't things like "charging when power is cheap" supposed always supposed to be a thing, with the assumption sometimes being "power is cheap at night"? Which might not be 100% true in a future with a lot of solar

    Anyways, sounds like a smart move.

    To expand a bit, I assume that "network costs" being reduced by up to $208/year amounts to that the infrastructure needs to be sized for maximum load, things get cheaper if you reduce the maximum load.

    To make an extreme example: A line that needs to transmit 100MW 12 hours/day, and 0MW the other 12, will transmit the same total energy as one that does 50MW 24 hours/day, but will need to be built to handle 100MW, while the latter only needs to be built to handle 50MW.

    Now, a 100MW line isn't double the price of a 50MW one, but 30-40% more expensive isn't out of the picture.

    Let's figure that the average electric car actually has 3-4 days worth of driving range for the average commuter. This means that they could set their car to use the cheapest expected power for charging over the next 3 days or so. The driver sets it up this way because it's worth it, saving them a couple hundred a year or so. It saves the electric companies money because they don't need to upgrade the infrastructure quite so much, as the EVs mostly pull power when the grid is under-utilized anyways.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Li-ion batteries generally wear less if you don't deeply discharge them, so, going from 80 to 60% to 80% five days a week is generally going to better for the battery than going from 80% to 20% to 80% once or twice a week.

        ...

        (And yes, I cut it at 80%, because that's another lifehack with li-ion batteries. They generally do better charged to about 80% or so. You should not take one to 100% unless your intention is to immediately use it.)

        Sounds like another major PITA to me if considering EV ownership.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Monday November 27, 2023 @03:33PM (#64036279)

            Single biggest thing I could do to reduce my carbon footprint I did, so, forgive me if I don't take too seriously when a breeder tries to shame me for my ICE.

            That "breeder" is the person that gave birth to the nurse that is going to bring you your applesauce and wipe your ass in your twilight years. Forgive me if I don't take you too seriously that you've "done your bit" by not having children.

            China is becoming an example of what happens if people don't have children near replacement rates. They have what's been called a "4-2-1 problem", this is one person left with the care of two parents and four grandparents. An artifact of the one-child policy. Because China is facing what could be a demographic and/or economic collapse in a few years, or perhaps a couple decades, the people that were responsible for enforcing the one-child policy are now responsible for encouraging people to have two or three children, a difficult task for people that grew up without siblings since they don't know what life would be like with more than one child in the home.

            I expect that this culture of having no children will die out in the USA, and for reasons that should be obvious. The "breeders" will inherit the earth, and I expect they will do quite well since they grew up in a culture that makes plans for future generations.

            • That "breeder" is the person that gave birth to the nurse that is going to bring you your applesauce and wipe your ass in your twilight years. Forgive me if I don't take you too seriously that you've "done your bit" by not having children.

              Yeah if they only gave birth to that nurse it would be okay. It's that nurse's 3 other siblings that are the problem.

              Also it's presumptuous to think that the GP will need a nurse. A significant portion of the population don't. Only a minority make it to such an end of life position that they need additional external care, and when they do they only do so for a small period of time.

              China is a bad example because it is an example taken to extremes. You don't need to take it to extremes when you criticise the

              • Also it's presumptuous to think that the GP will need a nurse. A significant portion of the population don't. Only a minority make it to such an end of life position that they need additional external care, and when they do they only do so for a small period of time.

                I don't think it's presumptuous at all for two reasons:
                1. Most people actually DO have a nurse (which I'm going to define as "under active medical care at death"). You're incorrect that "only a minority", a majority actually make it to a point they need additional external care, though you'd be correct that most are for a relatively short period (if 89.6 days is short). The percentage of people who get hospice at end of life is 50.7% [nhpco.org] from what I'm seeing. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't count those who di

                • (which I'm going to define as "under active medical care at death"). You're incorrect that "only a minority",[...]The percentage of people who get hospice at end of life is 50.7%
                  You are talking about the US of awesomeness again.
                  Imagine to live a healthy life, have no diabetes or kidney issues, go to bed at age of 89, and simply do not wake up the other day.
                  That is how most people die here at my place: Isaan.

                  • That is how most people die here at my place: Isaan.

                    Population: 22M. You'd barely budge US stats, even if 100% of your people die that way. You're a rounding error for the entire world.

                    • I guess you kind of misinterpreted my post.

                      There are not many countries where people usually die in a nursing center.

                    • Hmm... A lot of thoughts here.

                      I think you're operating under a misapprehension as well. To wit: Hospice, in the USA, is different than a "nursing center".

                      In the USA, "Hospice" is basically "End of Life Care". It's where they recognize that further medical care in the pursuit of saving the life of the patient is counterproductive, and switch to making the end of their life as comfortable as practical. This generally means them leaving the hospital and going back home.

                      Most hospice takes place at the pers

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • There wont be any collapse in China.
              You are just an idiot.

              Learn some basics. Or watch news. No idea which Chinese news channel is best. You could also just watch traveler videos on Youtube.

              You fucking American morons fight violently the idea that most other countries are emerging, and surpassed you in quality of life decades ago. E.g. the have a health care system, have an education system and a social system far beyond yours.

              Except for having a shiny car, on loan, and a shiny house, on loan: the average Am

            • "I expect that this culture of having no children will die out in the USA, and for reasons that should be obvious."

              The reason are not obvious. Cost of rising a child augment, whereas salary of the lower paid people never rise as much. You end up in a situation where soon a well educated single child is enough to bankrupt a family, or you make all family 3rd world poor with no future prospect. The ONLY way the culture of not having children will die out, is if the republican manage to outlaw contraception.
          • Not to beat a common /. trope into the ground but I don't see how you can rank fighting anthropogenic climate change as a top priority and simultaneously be opposed to nuclear power.
            Germanies electric grid will be carbon free in 7 years. And hopefully the whole country carbon free 10 years later.
            So: why do you care that we do it without nukes? It should be completely irrelevant for you, that we do not use nukes.
            Nukes make a lots of problems, and Germany has no single solution to one of those problems. So we

        • It's things like this that are causing the US auto companies to consider slowing or stopping EV production, since EVs are piling up unsold on dealer lots. [youtu.be].

          1. They're ignoring that gasoline vehicles are piling up in dealer lots as well.
          2. EVs (other than Tesla) have the problem that right now they still have non-Tesla plugs when all the models are going to be switching to Tesla plugs next model year or so. Sounds like a reason to wait to buy to me.

          Sounds like another major PITA to me if considering EV ownership.

          He's neglecting that most EVs already do the limiting because they're warrantied for like a decade, plus use chemistries that don't show that effect nearly as much.

          If you can't do that, which many can NOT do since they don't have offstreet parking, or rent and can't install charging equipment, or live in a large apartment complex with huge parking lots with no chargers...you're not really making an enticing vehicle for people to buy.

          Apartment complexes are already installing charge

          • 1. They're ignoring that gasoline vehicles are piling up in dealer lots as well.

            According to that and other videos as well as what I'm reading.....ICE vehicles are selling off the lots STILL much faster than EVs.

            Apartment complexes are already installing chargers in areas... Not to mention that a number of workplaces are as well.

            Perhaps on the far east/west coasts they are, but I sure don't see it anywhere I travel or live.

            Precious few charging stations that are publicly available in the New Orleans and

            • Even on highway trips, you don't go far between exits with filling stations.

              My record is 250 miles. I was seriously considering the gas cans in the trailer I was towing...

              More seriously, they keep expanding the charging network, so it's getting better all the time. If you're going somewhere major from somewhere major, odds are you can find enough charging stations. Assuming you own a Tesla. Tesla chargers tend to be operational and installed in sufficient quantity that you can use one when you pull up. Other companies tended to dribble them so you might find it being used when

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • You're basically talking about the nirvana fallacy though - I will 100% agree that EVs are not for everyone at the moment, and that they have a lot of work to do on infrastructure if they want to keep the sales of EVs expanding.

              You don't actually need off-street parking to charge EVs. There are chargers designed to handle EVs parking on the street. Though putting a charging port on the RIGHT sides of cars might help there.

              The near universal adoption of the tesla charging port should help in upcoming years

              • You don't actually need off-street parking to charge EVs. There are chargers designed to handle EVs parking on the street. Though putting a charging port on the RIGHT sides of cars might help there.

                I doesn't matter which side the charging port is...if there are NO fscking chargers out there where you park...

                ;)

        • by Teun ( 17872 )
          Sunday (yesterday) I drove my EV (Nissan Ariya) from The Netherlands to Denmark, a +six hour trip for an ICE.
          So add a good hour for two recharges for the car and coffee and a sandwich for me.
          There are plenty of chargers so no anxiety.
          Once in Denmark there was 16% charge left, because I don't need the car right now I delayed the (home)charging until the coming night when electricity is going to be cheaper due to the wind picking up.
          Over here we have a flexible contract where the kWh price changes per hou
          • Sunday (yesterday) I drove my EV (Nissan Ariya) from The Netherlands to Denmark, a +six hour trip for an ICE.

            So add a good hour for two recharges for the car and coffee and a sandwich for me.

            So....who actually wants to add the incovenience of an additional 2+ hours per trip???

            Sounds like another strike against EVs vs ICE at this point.

            • He said "a good hour". Basically, he stopped twice for 30 minutes each time. That's enough time to take a piss, wait in line to get a sandwich, walked back to the car, EAT the sandwich and be on your way. Maybe if there was a gas fill up in there you could shave 30 minutes down to 20 (still have to pump gas and THEN walk over to grab food, visit the loo, etc)

              • He said "a good hour". Basically, he stopped twice for 30 minutes each time. That's enough time to take a piss, wait in line to get a sandwich, walked back to the car, EAT the sandwich and be on your way. Maybe if there was a gas fill up in there you could shave 30 minutes down to 20 (still have to pump gas and THEN walk over to grab food, visit the loo, etc)

                I read that as a "good hour" taken EACH time he stopped (twice)....hence my 2x hour comment.

                I guess we'd need clarification from the author.

                I tend t

                • by Teun ( 17872 )
                  A good hour in total, when the dog needs walking it takes a little longer.
                  To put it in perspective, I've done the same trip in 4 3/4 hrs but that was on a Sunday morning and I was driving a Porsche with a Ferrari as company, that included refueling.
                  With the EV I limit my speed to save on power to 120 kmh (75mph), the Porsche went at certain stretches a bit faster at 160 mph.
      • Uh, I've been down the rabbit hole. EV batteries are already designed to keep you out of the wearing zones.

        There isn't much difference between 80-60-80 x 3 and 80-20-80x1, wear wise. As long as you stay away from 100 and 0, keeping it to somewhere between 90-10, and 85-15, depending on lots of exacting details about the battery and charging system.

        Besides, I figure that the battery would still charge most nights, there shouldn't be much difference between Monday and Friday, potential wise. The 3 day thin

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • https://batteryuniversity.com/... [batteryuniversity.com]

            According to this, while doing only a 10% charge gives the longest cycle life, it also severely limits the battery available. By going from 75-25%, 50% of the battery you actually get to use more EU (energy units) over the life of the battery. I'll admit that I was going off of memory, it looks like backing off an additional 5% from both sides would be beneficial(but would need to be studied, I think). Complicating this would be things like I said, where car batteries are

    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Selective billing has been a thing in Germany for decades. However now the cost of energy has gone up so significantly, even the overnight rates aren't feasible for EV charging. Many people take advantage of their employers having been mandated to put in EV chargers at the office that employers are now telling people to work in off-site locations so as not to be liable for it.

      So they're just moving the cost of EV ownership to the rest of the tax payer base, the energy still has to be produced, stored, trans

      • Employers are not mandated to have charger plugs for their employees. How do you come to that bullshit idea?

        The difference between peek power and base load is 60%, aka 40% is base load.
        There is no extra cost if cars charge around base load times or at excess power times.
        There is extra cost, if they want to charge at peak load, and the power plants can not deliverer, so the power companies have to buy power from the market.

    • Let's figure that the average electric car actually has 3-4 days worth of driving range for the average commuter.

      If true, and I'm not going to claim it is not, then people can likely charge up their car with a 120VAC outlet overnight to get the range they need for their daily commute. To compensate people for delaying their heat pump or EVSE use would require some kind of equipment on these devices, something not easily circumvented by the user or if circumvented then the utility knows about it so that they aren't obligated to provide compensation. A trivial means to circumvent any lockout on EVSE is to use the port

      • Okay, I've lived in houses with this equipment before, primarily on the water heater or pool pump.

        Basically, it's a secondary meter with a power company controlled relay.

        So your bill ends up being:
        Primary Meter * Primary rate - Secondary Meter * (Primary rate - preferred Rate)

        1. Charging their car using a 120V outlet overnight - They're just fine with this - you pay full rate on it.
        2. "Easy circumvention" is generally handled the same way - you screw it up, you just pay primary rate. The device itself is

        • Okay, I've lived in houses with this equipment before, primarily on the water heater or pool pump.

          Basically, it's a secondary meter with a power company controlled relay.

          So your bill ends up being:
          Primary Meter * Primary rate - Secondary Meter * (Primary rate - preferred Rate)

          I've seen homes with a heat pump on a secondary meter and that sounds about right. This isn't exactly common since heat pumps aren't exactly common. Winters are cold and natural gas is cheap so most homes have a furnace and air conditioner than a heat pump large enough to justify a separate meter. Heat pumps will be found mostly where the natural gas can't reach them, and even then LPG heat dominates yet.

          1. Charging their car using a 120V outlet overnight - They're just fine with this - you pay full rate on it.

          No doubt, the point is if people are annoyed with their EVSE being locked out because of demand shift

          • The EVSE may be covered by some government incentive but the wiring is not likely to be covered, and if the service panel is on the opposite end of the house as the garage, car port, or whatever then that can mean considerable expense in wire and labor. If that wiring costs too much then people may just give up on demand shifting incentives and charge with a portable charge cable from a common electrical outlet at home.

            Note, I read up on the current federal incentives because I'm looking to upgrade my heating/cooling. Actually, yes, they'll cover the wiring, up to and including replacing the service panel if it is necessary to enable the charger. Basically, they pay for the charger and installation, and if wiring is required for the installation. There are limits on the amount, but having gotten quotes for upgrading my service panel(it's full, and I want to install solar eventually), it's likely "plenty".

            Those that hate it will have their own "programming", and/or some need to get stuff done at odd hours where the demand shifting is impacting their lives.

            As you mention

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not reduced transmission line capacity that offers the bulk of the savings, it's reduced peak electricity prices.

      Consumers get a fixed rate for the electricity in most cases. The wholesale price spikes and dips with demand, but the energy company charges an average price per kWh that accounts for that.

      If the customer reduces the peaks, the supplier can offer a lower fixed price. The wholesaler needs less reserve on standby, and reserve plants have to charge less for the power they produce.

  • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

    A tariff is a tax placed on an export or an import. What does that have to do with a consumer buying electricity?

    • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      A tariff is a tax placed on an export or an import. What does that have to do with a consumer buying electricity?

      Words can have multiple definitions [merriam-webster.com], and tariff is, in fact, being used correctly here.

    • It is, and also: fix the price of (something) according to a tariff. "these services are tariffed by volume" From Oxford Languages. Or, here https://letmegooglethat.com/?q... [letmegooglethat.com]
    • It's an alternate definition. I know that the word "tariff" shows up in my electricity bills, and that's definitely not imported electricity.

      https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]

      a list of fixed prices charged by a company for services, by a hotel for rooms, etc.:
      Many smaller competitors have entered the market to undercut the company's telephone tariffs.
      Environment Energy offers a no-premium green electricity tariff.

      https://www.costanalysts.com/w... [costanalysts.com]

      Basically, an electricity tariff is the rate charged for electricity. It's the price per kWh or such, the price list. Or such.

  • by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Monday November 27, 2023 @01:29PM (#64035777)
    German electricity averages 390 g CO2 per kWh. Source [electricitymaps.com] Make sure to hit the 12 month button to see the last year. That's dirty. Compare that to French electricity which is 32 g CO2 per kWh. Germany failed.
    • German electricity averages 390 g CO2 per kWh. Source [electricitymaps.com] Make sure to hit the 12 month button to see the last year. That's dirty. Compare that to French electricity which is 32 g CO2 per kWh. Germany failed.

      Compared to France most of the rest of the world failed. You're not making any reasonable argument with your comparison to countries with wildly different energy policies 30 years ago, especially when you realise the path chosen by countries is based on historical resource availability.

      The only reason France isn't as dirty as Germany is because France doesn't sit on a fuckton of coal that they have spent 150 years building their society around. They didn't go all in on nuclear because they are oh so green,

      • Yes most of the world failed. So what? Germany failed extra hard though since they spent nearly 500 billion euros on renewables. Perhaps people can look at at what worked(France) and what didn't(Germany) going forward.

        Why did Germany fail though? Well it was because they shutdown all of their nuclear plants in order to become a hub for Russian natural gas in the middle of Europe. Since that is no longer an option they have become more reliant on coal and biomass. They have no solution the intermit

        • If Germany kept their nuclear plants open they would be phasing out their coal plants today.
          Germany never had load following nukes.
          Idiot very much?

          The population in Germany does not want nukes, we fought 50 years against the Government(s) to get rid of them.
          Idiot very much?

          Germany is a country. Or: A government. Following the will of the population, we abolished nukes 1999. Then came Merkel and postponed the exit. Then came Fukushima, and she reversed her course.

          If it was not for Merkel, Germany would be co

        • Russian Gas and Nukes have nothing to do with each other. Dumbass.

          • Russian Gas and Nukes have nothing to do with each other. Dumbass.

            Your plan was to replace nukes with Russian Gas. That's been documented. German is at 390 g CO2 per kWh. France is at 32 g CO2 per kWh. France pays less for electricity. France wins.

            The population in Germany does not want nukes, we fought 50 years against the Government(s) to get rid of them.

            Yeah cause your dumb. It's okay though. People here are dumb too. But we should try to be smart. Like France.

            And you: you are just an idiot with stupid rants who knows nothing about anything.

            Project much?

            Germany produces up to 60% of its power by renewables: and you? Or your country?

            390 g CO2. That's your score, and it's a bad one. My state is at 313 g CO2 per kWh. We're bad too. Thankfully we just saved Diablo Canyon from being shutdown. Going forward we will abso

            • Your plan was to replace nukes with Russian Gas.
              No that was never the plan. The plan was to replace them with wind, solar and bio gas.

              No idea what stupid news outlet you are reading/watching.

        • Yes most of the world failed. So what?

          So what? Literally my second sentence. Your point is stupid and irrelevant to the discussion.

          Perhaps people can look at at what worked(France) and what didn't(Germany) going forward.

          Perhaps you can build a timemachine to take us back to the start of the 1900s, because what happened in the past to get a country to a certain place is not necessarily a good indication of what will happen in the future, especially given the short timeline we expect.

          Well it was because they shutdown all of their nuclear plants

          Their CO2 emissions haven't risen as a result. So clearly you're wrong.

          If Germany kept their nuclear plants open they would be phasing out their coal plants today.

          Germany *is* phasing out their coal plants today. Their coal consumption is a sma

          • 390 g CO2 vs 32 g CO2. You hate the comparison because it proves you to be full of shit.

            So what? Literally my second sentence. Your point is stupid and irrelevant to the discussion.

            Projection

            Perhaps you can build a timemachine to take us back to the start of the 1900s, because what happened in the past to get a country to a certain place is not necessarily a good indication of what will happen in the future, especially given the short timeline we expect.

            Nuclear energy was responsible for the fastest in world history. There are zero examples of a country deep decarbonizing with just wind and solar. ZERO!!!!!

            Their CO2 emissions haven't risen as a result. So clearly you're wrong.

            390 g CO2 per kWh. That's up from a year ago. They would be near 100 g CO2 if they kept their nuclear and removed their coal.

            Germany *is* phasing out their coal plants today.

            They burned 10 TWh in the last year. It is not going anywhere. Wishful thinking is not capable of overcoming intermittency

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Plus France is now trying to move away from nuclear, because it turned out to be extremely expensive. Their nuclear industry gets a massive amount of public money, through various channels. Now that many plants are reaching end-of-life, the cost of replacing them will be astronomical.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )
      France imports electricity from Germany. [reuters.com] Do the CO2 emissions of imported electricity count against France or against Germany?
      • Yes it counts against France. But your article is out of date. The French nuclear fleet has been back online for a while now. That's why the 12 month average is at 32 g CO2 per kWh. France is a net exporter of electricity just like the previous 30 years. You antinuclear guys like to harp on 2022's Covid delayed maintenance, but it doesn't reflect reality.

        What's Germany going to do this Winter?

        Hint - They are going to be buying as much French nuclear energy as they can.

        • It does not count against France, dumbass
          The power emitting CO2 is counted "against" more precisely "inside" the country that emits the CO2. How fucking stupid are you?
          If Germany produces a gigazillion tons of CO2, Germany produces it! Does not matter if we export all or half or a third of the power. The CO2 bill is on the producer!

  • This looks like the same article as the one the editors included from Bloomberg, just without the paywall.
    https://energynow.com/2023/06/... [energynow.com]

    I can't know for sure if it's the same thing because I'm not going to subscribe to Bloomberg to find out.

  • What is needed now is a standard for communications between the grid and the car to automate this process.

    I have been doing this for a couple of years now at a local level between my car and my solar panels and recently Tesla offered a simpler version for their app. That has worked well for me. All the technology need to do this at grid level already exists and is present in recent BEVs so it really just comes down to agreeing on a standard for how it will be done, writing the software and deploying it

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