High electrical fees lead school districts to install batteries

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in environment on (#113FN)
story imageSky-high school electric bills have been in the spotlight this year. More than three dozen San Diego area districts combined forces to press the Public Utilities Commission to deny a large SDG&E rate hike last spring. "In San Diego, really every school is on a high demand rate tariff." The higher costs are known as "demand" charges, and they are unlike the tiered rates familiar to renters and homeowners. The utility pinpoints the single 15-minute period when a school pulls the most electricity, and multiplies that by $41.87 for each kilowatt. This can make for a rather high number when a heat wave spikes air conditioning use, or a cold snap prompts an outbreak of furtive space heaters.

The district is waiting for the state architect's approval to install large blocks of lithium ion batteries at 10 schools in early 2016. The silver-colored columns 8 feet high and 20 feet long will charge up on inexpensive nighttime electricity. Software inside will study each school's habits, relay warnings when use is climbing, and begin feeding battery power toward the school so the school will take less from the electric utility. Green Charge Networks thinks it can save Poway Unified School District some $133,000 its first year and $1.6 million over 10 years. If it doesn't, the school district doesn't pay for the batteries or their installation or maintenance.

http://inewsource.org/2015/11/30/san-diego-sdge-schools-batter-power/

Re: trial - consequences (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2016-01-23 04:49 (#11JXB)

Not necessarily true. $42/kW could be close to their actual cost to deliver peak power. So they earn $30,000 less, but they don't have to pay out as much to the expensive peaking power plants, and/or they can sell that generation and transmission capacity to another business in the area to recoup the loss.

That said, I wouldn't put rate increases past SDG&E... Every electric utility out there is trying to kill off net metering and impose exorbitant fees on residential solar customers, even though the numbers say they generally break-even on the arrangement. Fortunately only Nevada has caved, while PUCs, legislators and similar have refused to allow those rate increases almost universally across the country.
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