Batteries aren't great for large amounts of power for long periods of time (yet). What they are good at is smoothing out the supply curve from potentially intermittent suppliers like solar and wind, and that is one of the things that causes price spikes.
I know there have been pilots with some of the larger pumping stations to incorporate the current real time price of electricity, as well as the forecast rain within the next few hours to decide when to turn on. Not sure if it's actually used in production now.
That sort of thing is a great fit for that problem.
Also, trading off the reliability of power.
This seems outrageous to many of us in the West, but here in Australia our power utility already cuts power to neighborhoods in half hour blocks during peak power consumption during summer (I believe they exclude hospitals and some other sites like that from this policy).
The infrastructure savings made by this are huge (think of 99% reliability vs 99.99% in software), and the few that really need it can invest in backup solutions for those times.
Do those power utility savings translate into savings to the people who are cut off? I for one would not want to trade electricity price for reliability.
99% uptime means 7 hours of downtime every month. And it's not random downtime, it's downtime under peak demand.
If the choice was free electricity at 99% uptime and you have to take care of the rest yourself, or $0.13 / kWh for 99.999% uptime, I would go for the 0.13 / kWh.
Of course in AUS they probably charge more than 0.13 / kWh and make you deal with the brownouts anyway. Actually some quick searches reveal AUS pays about the highest rates in the world.
Reliably not being able to handle peak demand isn't a cost saving measure, it's an excuse for a major failure of the infrastructure.
In much of the world those cost saving are directly applicable. Most of the world's population doesn't have 99% reliable electricity, and so they build reliability at the edges with everything from batteries in phone towers, to batteries in lighting.
It isn't at all clear to me if this is more or less expensive for new infrastructure. Given the increasing popularity of roof-top solar, the pricing model for 24/7 reliable wiring doesn't work out now in places where it is already built out. Network operators are trying various legislative measures to get subsidies for the networks, because no one wants to pay the rates they cost to maintain.
If I had free (or very cheap) electricity 99% of the time, spending $5K to get 99.99% reliability via a battery system is very tempting (and we are getting close to that point now). $1K for 99.9% - maybe.
One interesting thing is that the distribution of the downtime matters.
For countries who don't yet have a reliable electric grid, I think investing in providing quality / reliable electricity to their population is about the best ROI (after providing reliable drinking water) investment they can make.
The economic cost of blackouts and brownouts are extremely high [1] -- for example, the rolling backouts in California back in 2000 - 2001 were estimated to cause GDP loss of 0.7 - 1.5%! (GDP was ~1.2T, so we're talking economic losses on the order of $10 billion).
[1] - http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/counting-the-co...
Solar is separate - I'm talking about charging the battery from the grid.
Brownouts are expensive, but so is the cost of making sure they don't happen. Peaker plants cost more than $10m/year without even turning them on[2]. There are over 40 in California[3] currently available. Hopefully they don't all cost $10M each to keep available, but it doesn't take many years to surpass that $10B cost...
[1] http://www.wholesalesolar.com/tesla-powerwall-for-solar
[2] http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/07/peakers_plants_...
[3] http://www.energy.ca.gov/maps/powerplants/EmergencyPeakerPow...
I'm assuming you are talking USD, if so? Are you sure you have your numbers correct? That seems ridiculously expensive compared to say Australia. First link on DuckDuckGo: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/panels/cost/
Here in the Netherlands, our complete solar system with installation cost us EUR 4,500, and we do run some AC in the hottest summer months. We are currently generating more than we use, with a household of 2 adults and 4 kids.
Buildings can design load leveling into their systems with things like thermal energy storage that shifts air conditioning consumption off-peak by freezing ice overnight and using it to cool the building during the day.
One example with a Calmac IceBank system: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-soluti...
The same goes for an electric water heater.
The charger for your Tesla can also adjust when it charges based on power prices.
The dishwasher/washer/dryer can be set to come on at night when the power rates dip.
Exterior lights can dim if the power rates go up.
All that is needed is a way to get the spot price of electricity from the internet, similar to how I can get the current temperature in Anchorage. Devices don't need to talk to the power grid.
And if you're /not/ getting billed by the minute, what's in it for the buyer to choose an AC that sometimes turns itself off?
Of course, the power company having billing by the minute will then create the incentive for such an A/C. That's the whole point!
But you need everyone to be wired for this in order for a small change to add up to a big impact. Which isn't worth the cost unless it's mandated. Which is a political mess.
So we solve the problem another way; with batteries to meet the peak power demand at a reasonable cost, and not demand a massive IoT network, constantly monitoring usage and with override control authority.
The system will convert over as people normally replace their appliances, just like bluray has pushed out dvd players.
Most of benefits come if you have a system which can regulate slightly your use of air conditioning and heating (and a few other things like pool pumps).
In some cases you can save 50% of a daily powerbill by turning off the compressor in an air conditioner for 15 minutes.. but the right 15 minutes.
Few people would get up and turn off the air con for that, but a system that let you say how much you want to spend on it that you setup once makes a lot of sense.
You will end up with some kind of "smart device" router that connects to your internet/home network to talk to the power company, and uses a commodity wifi interface to talk to your smart devices. The cost of an ESP8266 is already sub-$7 at hobbyist volumes, you can expect the additional hardware cost to easily be driven to trivial levels with widespread adoption.
The problem is purely in getting a standard system out there and designing devices that incorporate the new control model.
Also, using a website or other resource run by the power company is still talking to the power company. Not sure ho else you could have parsed that, but you clearly had some crossed wires there.
What a great problem that will be.
It'll probably be more meaningful in some industrial plants though, if there's any such energy-intensive industry.
And if electric cars also plug in at work... jackpot.
Then all the rechargeable cars become part of the battery moderation of the whole grid!
That's a no-brainer compared to paying the owner for shortening the life of the battery.
Of course there should be some mechanism involved to prevent all washing machines to turn on at exactly the same moment the moment it dips...