Featured Tesla Model 3 now costs as little as $23K in California thanks to tax credits

You partially answered your own question.
People shifting their energy use from peak, to off peak times will help all customers as well as the environment.
Utilities build to supply the peak. If the peak is lowered, or at least, doesn't grow, the utility won't need to build capacity as quickly. This lowers, (or at least doesn't raise) utility bills.

Even if people use the same amount of energy overall, by lowering the peak you have a higher efficiency of the existing infrastructure. This is a win both monetarily and environmentally.

To go deeper into the weeds, if I know, from hour to hour when the supply is plentiful, I will adjust my energy use accordingly. Not everyone will, but enough will that it will make a difference.

 

At least in my own use case, I don't see how the small saving by shifting electricity use time will pay off the initial cost of the battery. I was contacted by a solar PV company out of Arizona recently. They were trying to sell me new panels installed on our roof. They run their preliminary quote based on our electricity use and location and site picture off Google satellite photo. They were touting that the panel cost has dropped in recent years and it is now cheaper than ever with the tax credit. Their quote was $48K (before tax credit) for a 12kW system. And if I financed it, it would cost a total of $75K for 25 years of payment. LOL And this was just a regular grid-tied system. I did not even ask, but if they put battery storage for that size, the price would double. I would be long dead before the system paid itself. Not really a convincing marketing point for me.

I had a quote from a local solar company that did the site evaluation several years ago, and they gave me $32K for a 12kW grid-tied system. That is still a ~15 yr payback period in the best scenario. At this cost, only very selective households with deep pockets can do such installation. I just don't see how that is going to curve the peak usage. In order to make any difference, the system has to be widely available and widely adopted, just like BEV use. We are definitely not there yet.

But thanks for the explanation of the theoretical benefit. If I install PV on our roof, I will not be using a grid-tied system. My goal will be energy independence. I would use battery storage with the off-grid solar system but that will not benefit the grid electricity usage distribution directly, other than having one less ratepayer.

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, if my utility offered only hourly rates to the ratepayers, then I would be the type of person who is constantly checking the rate and adjusting the usage. But, I doubt many would go to such an extreme. Besides, I am glad my utility does not offer an hourly rate for me. That is one less item to overanalyze in my life which is a good thing.

 

Looking into solar right now, and adding a battery does double cost. My service is pretty reliable, and Pa supports grid tied systems that bank credit for excess production. I'll revisit the battery in a few years.

You don't have to have solar to install a battery. Some are installing them alone for emergency power. Some are using smaller for just some peak shaving. They can be used in conjunction with a generator to get a hybrid benefit; generator runs at peak efficiency charging up the battery, then shuts down. Some systems can be automated to use the generator and battery during times the grid rates are higher.

Part of the reason I like living in my town. The township is the power company, and exempt from Pa's deregulation. So electric, water, sewer, and trash is all on one bill, and I don't have to go through the effort of comparison shopping between for profit sources. In a few years, the town might even become my ISP.

 

I also have been looking around for newer generations of battery power banks that work as a whole house generator system. But again, investing in an expensive power bank system makes no financial sense. With such a small saving on the TOU plan, it will not pay it off. And if the gas generator is running in conjunction, then it makes even less sense to get a battery power bank.

Deregulation of the electric supply, in general, is a failed attempt to trickle down the saving to consumers by having competitive suppliers with market-based pricing. In most cases, alternative power suppliers' prices are higher than the PUC-voted public standard offering rate. To save on supply costs, consumers have to do due diligence to research the market. Not many people have the time or inclination to do such a thing. But, I still like the idea of having the choice. I do not like Utility company monopoly, but I also would not want a unified community-owned utility and services like yours. We have no municipal water, sewer, or garbage services. If they did, our property tax would be double or triple. When we lived in MA city with municipal water and sewer, our water/sewer bill was even more expensive than the electric bill. And the property tax was outrageous.

 

We have been on a TOU plan for years. Changes with the seasons so we run laundry, dishes etc at night or early AM in the summer. In the winter we have a mid day period where we do optional things. Saves us about 10%. It doesn't affect our total use but allows the utility to better control the use of their most expensive power generating plants by us using power when total demand is the lowest.

 

I stand corrected again! So electricity is basically free in Norway? 2¢ per kWh is much cheaper than anything in the USA that I know of. I spend nearly 1000% that much.

 

pre-2020, and during the peak of pandemy, the spot price was as low as that. yeah. end users pay a little bit of top-up in addition to the spot price (obviously, that's the margin from resellers) so 1000% increase was not that crazy, right? I like you Americans, hope my posts help a little bit in infomration sharing

 

Just to be clear, your first error was using the wrong currency. So, while $23USD/megaWh is $0.02USD/kWh, that was not the peak (most expensive) wholesale electricity in Norway on the chart I copied. It is 250EUR/megaWh, so it converts to $270USD/megaWh. Thus as I corrected before, the highest wholesale price marked on the chart was around $0.27USD/kWh, not $0.02USD/kWh.

But as @pei_lin pointed out, he is on a retail hourly rate. So, his rate is probably not as "fixed" as the chart shows. In any case, you are correct in that Norway's electric rate is far cheaper than most of the US and certainly much less than what I pay in northern New England currently at $0.31/kWh. That's why a 1000% increase did not kill the BEV adoption.

But the other side of the coin is that I suspect the gas price is much higher in Norway compared to the US average for sure. Overall, it must be "cheaper" relatively speaking to drive a BEV than a gas car in Norway.

 

Norway offshore reserves are pretty decent - but with russia cutting off supplies it puts the hurt on a lot of Europe - including Norway .
Norway Rakes In Money as Surging Gas Prices Rip Through Europe - Bloomberg

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