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Comment by bitschubser_ | Hacker News Reader

isn't it much "easier" to implement some kind of progressive price on energy? first 1000kw/h are "cheaper" than market (per person in household), next 500kw/h double the price, next 500kw/h doubles again etc... For things like heatpumps you usually have an extra meter with special day/night tarifs (in germany), the rest is metered as general consumption. I always wonder through how much energy my peers burn, we have a 2 person household with 2 e-bikes which are used regulary + both in home office (heating is gas) and "just" need 1200kw/h pA (and our appliances are not all A++)

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BC does that for electricity, but there's talk of getting rid of it -- because it punishes people for using electric cars and heat pumps.

Great for reducing electricity consumption; not great for reducing total energy usage.

You could design a pricing scheme that takes this into account:

- Make it for all energy use, not just electricity

- Give an extra allowance for electric car owners

Something like that is currently proposed in the Netherlands, and will probably be implemented January 1st. Electricity and gas use up to the consumption of the average Dutch household (1100 m3 and 2200 kWh of the top of my head) will be cheaper than market.

As a response the houses will be artifficially split into two. What counts as a household is not that deterministic.

I think that already exists. You get some base amount with hookup fee and the rest you pay extra for

Progressive pricing exists for commercial users but in general has been too complicated for home users.

just out of curiosity because I have no clue :D why is it regarded as complicated? For waste you already have a basic tarif + extra for every member in the household, and the "progression" is that you have to buy really expensive "waste bags" if you produce more waste

Use more pay more is pretty simple and implemented - and the lowest tiers are really cheap.

The complicated one is daily tiers - when power is more or less expensive at different times.

are daily tiers and dynamic pricing really needed for consumers, shoudn't it even out on the long term? Until recently it worked quite well for a energy supplier to supply me with a fixed rate for a year and still making profit (when I take a look at their yearly earnings report, I think I also subsidized heavy users with my low usage :D). over a year the price should average out quite nicely when I look at the energy mix in germany and the cost. The only "problem" we currently have is the merit order principle and the pegging of the (haywire) gas price to the energy price which makes calculations for suppliers difficult (and the absence of building renewable, and the maintenance and shutoffs of nuclear :D). Aside from that consumption is quite foreseeable and production also, so daily rates should not matter that much? I think paying by the hour/daily makes things just more complicated, I actually don't really want to time my laundry cooking with future prices on an hour/daily base :D

The goal with it is to encourage people to move load to coincide with demand. But it’s complicated and changes - during solar peaks the best time to do laundry may be midday but durning wind peaks that could be the middle of the night.

The solution is power storage either at a grid level or at a home level where the information is available to the smart batteries. And/or so much excess solar and wind that we just don’t care.

yeahh I see or just preload the washing machine and trigger it if the spupply is high .. but that means a lot of interconnected appliances.

I'm also planning to add one or two small 800Wp PV systems "Balkonsolar" to our flat (we have plenty of space on the south facing side) this will also involves pre planning for energy intensive stuff including a planned AC in the summer... let's see how this works out :)

I think we need to figure out how to de-complicate variable rates for residential customers. Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more responsive.

During the Texas winter crisis, virtually no residential customers saw a financial incentive to wind down power usage. Only those crazies on Griddy, et. al. were impacted.

Both in Texas and California recently lots of people voluntarily cut back but it’d be nice to reflect that in the billing in some way. The Griddy way may have been too extreme but encouraging conservation of energy is a generally good idea (imagine things like rebating permit fees based on sliding scale of how much you “beat code” on a blower door and insulation test).

It is actually the opposite. In California, police attack your home if you are thrifty and use less energy. Apparently you are placed on some sort of suspicious list and accused of stealing power.

https://www.yahoo.com/video/senior-asian-couple-california-g....

During: true.

But most Texas utility customers now pay a surcharge every month to pay off the accumulated debt of that crisis.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/02/11/how-much...

Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more responsive.

That's only a valid strategy if your customers can be more responsive, but in a freak cold snap where most customers are running heaters at 100% to keep their homes habitable, there's little they can go to reduce demand.

Many people have purchased generators after that crisis, but telling (and maybe subsidizing) millions of people to buy a generator and stockpile fuel because the grid can't handle cold weather is not good energy policy.

It'd be better if regulators required demand-response automation that would let them intelligently scale back demand of high-energy appliances before the grid reaches critical levels without heavy-handed rolling blackouts.

My utility (SCE in the US) has traditionally had consumption based progressive tiered pricing for years (monthly basis). Recently, they have been pushing consumers to time of use pricing though (higher rates at peak time of peak consumption). So, consumers can adapt.

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