Comment on Tesla paid Powerwall owners $10 million through virtual power plants

• Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Even this is only kind of true!

  I don’t understand what you mean? A battery has a limited durability, and selling from battery wears the battery, the cost of that is around 5 cent. Of course it varies depending on the durability and price of the battery, if it’s an older battery, the price is higher.

  So in short, if you get less than 5 cent for selling electricity from your battery, you may be selling at less than it cost you to store that power.

  most countries have “baselined” markets, where using less electricity than normal at that time is considered the same as an export.

  I have never heard of that before, but I doubt Tesla is paying you for using less power.

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  • houseofleft@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Pretty likely that they might be. The logic works differently in a few different markets but essentially:

    • You demonstrate your mean usage at a given time, say 2kw
    • You trade 1kw
    • You demonstrate that you used 1kw less than normal
    • You get paid

    (obviously only in certain markets, but these are fairly widespread)

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    • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Our electricity consumption is monitored near real time and is available on eloverblik.dk
      Where you can log in to get a collective exact overview of import and export for every property you own or rent.
      There would never be a requirement of documenting it, because any energy company that would require that info, you would grant access to it, so the can read it automatically.

      So here by far the most normal is to pay by the hour, but we do not have credits for reduced consumption, which also IMO sounds a bit stupid, because the reduced consumption would just become the new normal.
      So I’m surprised you claim it’s widespread.

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      • houseofleft@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        IMO sounds a bit stupid

        Ok, fine I guesss? I’m not advocating for anything, I’m just telling you about something that exists.

        So I’m surprised you claim it’s widespread.

        This sounds a lot like you’re implying that I would make this up, I have no idea why you think this but DFS, balancing service, and the UK balancing mechanism are all UK markets that allow you to do this. The UK isn’t unique, but I’m not as familiar with other energy markets.

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    • houseofleft@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      For a real world example, Octopus energy in the UK will do this with your EV charger if you are on certain tariffs.

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