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Comment by klooney | Hacker News Reader

Washington is sort of a best case though- you have pretty darn cheap electricity over there.

Energy costs in most of the US are favorable to this math. The cost of energy supply should be pushed down as renewable deployment continues indefinitely.

https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/average-electricity-re...

California has a lot of renewables, but retail prices have increased rapidly.

Unconstrained distribution costs because of lack of political will to aggressively regulate (PG&E, etc). Mostly a California problem, as long as PG&E is permitted to extract executive comp and profits while minimizing infrastructure investment. Supply costs are plunging during the day due to utility scale solar output.

The reason PG&E rates are skyrocketing in California - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40128003 - April 2024 (26 comments)

After 111 years, SF finally moving to oust PG&E and create a public-power system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39587901 - March 2024 (13 comments)

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight... | https://archive.today/PeDeH ("April 2024: CAISO sets back-to-back solar peak records in April; power spot prices plunge")

> Spot power prices have been trending lower year on year on lower natural gas spot prices and more renewable generation supply, including hydropower following years of drought.

> CAISO has 19.011 GW of installed solar generation capacity, which accounts for the majority of renewable resources on the grid at 62%, according to the Key Statistics report. Solar capacity has increased nearly 15% compared to a year ago and 26% from two years ago.

> There are currently 28.6 GW of solar projects in the CAISO generation queue, including 13.8 GW that have executed interconnection agreements and nearly 4.5 GW of those have on-line dates expected listed for 2024. Only two solar projects slated to come online in 2024 do not have batteries connected.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO ("ElectricityMaps.com: California CAISO Zone")

California has a PG&E regulatory capture problem.

Electricity is very cheap next door in Arizona

Would be a no-brainer to cover warehouses and parking lots with solar and charge the fleet yourself for even less.

Even if you’re not charging the fleet, you can power the warehouse.

As long as you’re using less electricity from the grid overall per day, you’ll save money in the long run.

Except the vehicles are probably in use during the daytime.

It’s common to have a mix where some trucks make 1 route per day and others do several. So you can optimize by rotating loading times, spare vehicles, and having some onsite batteries.

Solar > battery means DC fast charging gets to skip AC>DC losses which are significant. But you don’t need to use 100% of solar’s output to save a lot of money.

Agreed, starts to break down if you live in California and already own a hybrid.

Yeah, I wish I could get remotely close to that cheap electricity in CA.

Solar panels :) it even made sense (for me) in WA at $0.11/KWh.

I’ve already got them (and a battery), but it ain’t cheap! They’re also pressuring everyone to go electric/heat pump for everything, but then I’d have to start paying the extortionate electric rates here once again.

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