Nice trial (Score: 1) by fnj@pipedot.org on 2016-01-19 18:19 (#116DG) Somebody has to provide for peaking supply. Either the utility has to have nearline generation to bring online quickly/temporarily when needed, or borrowing over the grid, or some kind of storage system (battery, pumped storage, etc) - or the user can provide his own storage system.There are pluses and minuses for the supplier handling it, and for the user handling it. The supplier can combine all the individual user peaks, which is a kind of economy of scale. The user handling it himself can put a known bound on peaking expense, whereas the supplier is free to change cost policy at any point.If it's just an expense amelioration system, the user doesn't have to build his system to five nines reliability, or anything like that. Batteries are batteries. I can believe it would make sense economically for the user to do it.I guess we'll see. trial - consequences (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2016-01-22 21:28 (#11J1Z) 1. Electric Co. multiplies peak usage by $42/kilowatt.2. Consumer 1 installs batteries to reduce peak usage.3. Consumer 1 figures out they can add solar for not much more.4. Electric Co. adds surcharge of $41.87/kilowatt to remaining customers for "lost" income.5. Consumer 2 installs batteries and solar.
trial - consequences (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2016-01-22 21:28 (#11J1Z) 1. Electric Co. multiplies peak usage by $42/kilowatt.2. Consumer 1 installs batteries to reduce peak usage.3. Consumer 1 figures out they can add solar for not much more.4. Electric Co. adds surcharge of $41.87/kilowatt to remaining customers for "lost" income.5. Consumer 2 installs batteries and solar.