Abusing free nights electricity plan with batteries

[Tom5459]

I am tempted to try it as the electricity termination fee is only $150 (so it's practically a free option for me as a use so much residual power the switching fee is minimal). But I am wondering if this is just a clever lawyer putting language in that the operations guys never follow up on or a real change.

I have a big flat roof house from the 60s with the original roof so I don't want solar drilled into that.

But the bigger worry is only getting the energy charge free at night and not the distribution fee from txu ($0.058 Centerpoint Houston zone). That is now in their core pricing. Just Energy does rebate the nighttime distribution charge but they now have that TOS language that they will terminate the plan if they perceive you may have a battery. TXU is not a good option any longer.

It you have a solar plus battery combo then I could the free nights as a nice to have but really just a cherry on top. But a battery only setup is completely dependent on the electricity providers contract and policing operations around time of use.

Can anyone doing this currently peek at your contract terms of service for any time of use restrictions and then whether the provider has tried to turn off your contract?

 

[blueforce]

Green mountain has nothing like that in their contract. Only that they can change the contract at any time and I have 14 days to cancel if they do.

Look at Green Mountain Energy, Direct Energy, Amigo, or just search google for free TOU plans and READ READ READ the EFL. Heck, post the EFL here and we can look at it too.

 

[Tom5459]

Amigos ToS for free nights:

10.1(a) Time-of-Use Product Eligibility Restrictions. If you enroll in a time-of-use energy plan (e.g., Amigo Energy’s 100% Green Nights Free Plan, Nights Free Plan, or similar), Amigo Energy reserves the right to automatically transition your ESI ID to the Variable Price Product if: (i) you have installed or subsequently install at your premises solar panels or other form(s) of distributed generation and/or one or more batteries or other form(s) of energy storage system; (ii) your TDU established load profile has a PV, WD, DG, or similar designation indicating you might have distributed generation or energy storage facilities at your premises;

 

[Tom5459]

Interestingly Green Mountain has no time of use restrictions that I could find. Now it's day time charge is big so would have to plan to go big on storage:

Base Charge $0.00 per month

CenterPoint Energy Monthly Charges $4.90 per month

Daytime Energy Charge 24.0256¢ per kWh

CenterPoint Energy Daytime Delivery Charges 5.8104¢ per kWh

Nighttime Energy Charge $0.00 per kWh *

CenterPoint Energy Nighttime Delivery Charges $0.00

 

[JäseH]

I told the people on the reddit sub and FB to stop trumpeting these plans before they killed the golden goose. Now, judgment day is here. I'm only going to recoup half my outlay if I can't reup on my plan. Instead of recovering everything in 3 years, it'll be like twice that.

 

[1201]

I told the people on the reddit sub and FB to stop trumpeting these plans before they killed the golden goose. Now, judgment day is here. I'm only going to recoup half my outlay if I can't reup on my plan. Instead of recovering everything in 3 years, it'll be like twice that.

you already have interconnection agreement. Very inexpensive now to add solar panels.

 

[blueforce]

I'm gonna continue to tell everyone I can about this. Get it while the gettin's good

 

[JäseH]

I'm gonna continue to tell everyone I can about this. Get it while the gettin's good

If you're reading this, it's too late.

you already have interconnection agreement. Very inexpensive now to add solar panels.

Already have a quote in hand to expand. But I have free nights for another 18 months, so it doesn't make sense to pull the trigger now, even with the credit going away. But I'll definitely sock some extra cash away in case it makes sense to pull the trigger when I'm up for renewal. Delivery charges in Texas are increasingly rapidly.

 

[Hedges]

Federal credit of 30% goes away in 3 months.
You have free nights for 18 months.
PV panels will be good for way more than 240 months.

Where do you think panel prices will be 18 months from now?
Have you every made purchases with a view that far in the future?

(however, "Quote to expand") sounds to me like "Turnkey for 4 to 6 times the price of DIY".)

 

[Brucey]

I told the people on the reddit sub and FB to stop trumpeting these plans before they killed the golden goose. Now, judgment day is here. I'm only going to recoup half my outlay if I can't reup on my plan. Instead of recovering everything in 3 years, it'll be like twice that.

It was inevitable that as battery prices continued dropping a significant number of accounts would start to charge via free overnight rates and significantly reduce revenue to the utility. They'll have their revenge by massively increasing distribution costs to boot, while giving you token pennies for any production if you have interconnection.

 

[1201]

It was inevitable that as battery prices continued dropping a significant number of accounts would start to charge via free overnight rates and significantly reduce revenue to the utility. They'll have their revenge by massively increasing distribution costs to boot, while giving you token pennies for any production if you have interconnection.

my utility is increasing distribution costs for everyone by 50% in November!

 

[blueforce]

If you're reading this, it's too late.

You're right, it is too late. My 1 year contract has ended and they offered me a 3 year extension before it did back in March. ROI here I come!

Everyone wants to be doom and gloom about what could happen in the future but the present seems to contradict that. Sure there are REPs that won't give you favorable terms but there are others that will. Just make sure you do your calculations and check your numbers first.

 

[JäseH]

Where do you think panel prices will be 18 months from now?
Have you every made purchases with a view that far in the future?

(however, "Quote to expand") sounds to me like "Turnkey for 4 to 6 times the price of DIY".)

Panels are a commodity. I'm comfortable holding off because long term, commodity prices tend to decline as economies of scale increase. There no benefit to me upgrading now unless I thought panel prices would increase significantly. From the quotes I obtained before my system was installed, many vendors were jacking up their prices to take advantage of the credit. I have a 24-panel system with a Sol-ark 15k. Quotes ranged from 26K to 56K, with most on the higher end.

 

[Hedges]

True enough. Whenever I've thought "Wow, that's low!" they've fallen in half again.

Although, some panels and batteries are so low now that it doesn't matter whether they go lower or not. Like they're penny stocks. The "upside" potential for price is all that matters.
At least for us paying $0.40 to $0.60/kWh. Those paying $0.12 would find equipment costs and time value of money more on parity with utility rates.

66% to 75% of what you're looking at is installation costs. US centric.
Australia and Europe get installed systems for 1/3 what we pay here.
If only you had a way to DIY and get it for hardware costs alone.

 

[whiteshepherd]

Was looking to sign up for a power plan with free nights. Direct Energy does not seem to be doing it outside of Texas now. Anyone else? Up here in NW PA on Penelec.

 

[faultcurrent]

It was inevitable that as battery prices continued dropping a significant number of accounts would start to charge via free overnight rates and significantly reduce revenue to the utility. They'll have their revenge by massively increasing distribution costs to boot, while giving you token pennies for any production if you have interconnection.

Completely the reverse situation in Australia. 3 free hours of electricity during the day is being progressively made available to all residences, be that a house, a block of flats, what ever. It may also include light commercial operations, not sure on that.

It's more a symptom of the situation than any form of generosity. Australia has so much solar installed at this point in relation to population that we can't make use of it and discard many many gigawatt hours each day via curtailment. We don't have any way to store it and are already pushing the limit of how low baseload generation can go before things break. Even the subsidised home battery scheme to get people soaking up their own production for use later isn't sufficient. Apart from daily charges (standing fees for the UKers) a person could charge up during those 3 hours and reduce kWh charges to 0. It won't go away any time soon either since there's no large scale storage being built just a slow build out of grid scale battery systems.

The real crunch will come as coal baseload is progressively shut down (aged plant etc). That will open up an around 180GWh hole overnight for the east coast network (NEM) that so far no one has explained how it will be filled.

 

[ConnerLabs]

Completely the reverse situation in Australia. 3 free hours of electricity during the day is being progressively made available to all residences, be that a house, a block of flats, what ever. It may also include light commercial operations, not sure on that.

It's more a symptom of the situation than any form of generosity. Australia has so much solar installed at this point in relation to population that we can't make use of it and discard many many gigawatt hours each day via curtailment. We don't have any way to store it and are already pushing the limit of how low baseload generation can go before things break. Even the subsidised home battery scheme to get people soaking up their own production for use later isn't sufficient. Apart from daily charges (standing fees for the UKers) a person could charge up during those 3 hours and reduce kWh charges to 0. It won't go away any time soon either since there's no large scale storage being built just a slow build out of grid scale battery systems.

The real crunch will come as coal baseload is progressively shut down (aged plant etc). That will open up an around 180GWh hole overnight for the east coast network (NEM) that so far no one has explained how it will be filled.

I remember when pundits were warning about the Australian grid "death spiral". https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/phase-shift-the-grid-death-spiral-is-bullshit/

Maybe our Australian readers can comment on whether the death spiral really is bullshit?

For time of use plans meant for EV charging, the power company is banking on the customer charging the EV at night, AND continuing to pay for their regular power consumption during the day.

 

[faultcurrent]

I remember when pundits were warning about the Australian grid "death spiral". https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/phase-shift-the-grid-death-spiral-is-bullshit/

Yes, some people are using the grid as a standby source only. How long that will go on for will depend on the ever climbing daily charges. There will be a point where people just say 'f it, I might as well buy a generator and put up with doing the required periodic maintenance'.

I'm on the most economical plan, TOU with fairly agressive peak rates, and it comes with a AUD 1.48834 daily charge, ie without using a single watt hour from the grid it costs me AUD 44.70 a month. It's the best option for me since I don't draw any power from the grid. If I went back to flat rate daily charge goes up to AUD 1.68842.

I'm in a southern part of Queensland that is covered by Ergon Energy which is the state government and subsidised to give reasonable price parity with what is available in the state capital area where genuine retail competition exists.

Disconnecting from the grid is not without consequence. Not a lot of people understand that their current electrical installation is 'grandfathered' in, ie so long as it was compliant the day it was setup you can keep using it and it's all good assuming it is maintained. 70 year old wood framed asbestos riddled with rewirable fuses and not an RCD/RCBO in sight main switchboard, that's fine (solar often requires RCD protection on it but depending on when it was done only it may have such protection). Should you actually disconnect, and that means having the service taken away, meter and network equipment removed, overhead service line removed, underground wires disconnected and capped off, you break the grandfathering. Should you wish to reconnect you have to bring your installation up to current compliance standards and that could be an expensive exercise potentially requiring a full rewire and replacement of old switches and other fittings.

 

[wattmatters]

It won't go away any time soon either since there's no large scale storage being built

You mean apart from Snowy Hydro 2's 350 GWh capacity and the Kidston pumped hydro power station with 2 GWh? There are other pumped hydro projects scheduled to start before long, although large scale batteries are starting to take over that intermediate storage space. Collie has just added its second 2 GWh battery. Add Eraring, Liddel, Supernode, Richmond Valley, Tomago, Waratah, Orana amongst others, each with between 1 - 2.5 GWh capacity.

Maybe our Australian readers can comment on whether the death spiral really is bullshit?

Don't know about elsewhere but it's bullshit here.

My energy bill will be lower if I stay connected to the grid than if I were off-grid. That's because we can trade energy and the grid wants to give away middle of the day surplus for nothing and buy it at peak evening time for a decent clip.

And the cost of a viable on-grid system is way, way less than an off-grid one.

 

[faultcurrent]

You mean apart from Snowy Hydro 2's 350 GWh capacity and the Kidston pumped hydro power station with 2 GWh? There are other pumped hydro projects scheduled to start before long, although large scale batteries are starting to take over that intermediate storage space. Collie has just added its second 2 GWh battery. Add Eraring, Liddel, Supernode, Richmond Valley, Tomago, Waratah, Orana amongst others, each with between 1 - 2.5 GWh capacity.

The only thing big is Snowy 2. It'll eventually be completed. Eventually. In the meantime, the free hours won't be going away any time soon. Despite the seemingly impressive figures Snowy 2 is not sufficient to cover things. The cyclic daily capability of Snow 2 is more like 50GWh unless we wish to gut natural water flow and wreak havoc with the environment. Think the Franklin was big destruction? Wait until you try to operate Snowy 2 at '350GWh'.

Remember, 180GWh (it actually goes up to around 240GWh depending on the weather etc) is the present overnight energy requirements being met by coal. Every. Single. Night. We actually need several times Snowy 2 not just because of the environmental vs cyclic aspect but because of needing reserve storage. The rate of 'grid scale' battery roll out won't do the job. Queensland's pumped hydro was killed off by the current government and the only thing that government has done so far towards any plan at all is to say "we will up end a large bucket of money into coal generation and keep it going until 2045".

Frankly it's not looking good.

 

[Brucey]

Snowy 2.0, the one that was going to cost $2 billion and now looking at $12 billion?

How can it cover the coal station shutdowns if it can only deliver 2.2 GW? If we assume 12 hours of overnight operation that's a max of 26.4GWh?

 

[faultcurrent]

Snowy 2.0, the one that was going to cost $2 billion and now looking at $12 billion?

How can it cover the coal station shutdowns if it can only deliver 2.2 GW? If we assume 12 hours of overnight operation that's a max of 26.4GWh?

Yep, that's the one. Good point on the 2.2GW capability too. Coal generation collectively can exceed 20GW. Queenslands pumped hydro was going to be capable of 5GW a piece.

 

[wattmatters]

How can it cover the coal station shutdowns if it can only deliver 2.2 GW? If we assume 12 hours of overnight operation that's a max of 26.4GWh?

It's not designed to replace every coal station. That's what solar, wind and batteries will do, and have been doing. SH2 is about deep storage to supplement through periods of lower solar and wind generation as well as play a regular supply role on a daily basis.

We will still use some gas from time to time.

The progress is happening and will continue to do so. I agree it still needs a lot but there is a lot more coming. This is the proportion of NEM demand satisfied by fossil sources (coal, gas, oil, diesel) vs renewables:

 

[faultcurrent]

... and this is a one day snapshot (yesterday) show the reality of the situation. Yes more generation is coming from renewables but that's without bulk storage. Overwhelmingly coal (brown/black) runs the show after dark. (sorry left wind out) Wind being the next biggest then hydro being the next largest, battery discharging (blue) being pretty much insignificant and gas picking up what remains. We can run the show off renewables during the day (to the extent that baseload can not be reduced any more lest the network become unstable). It's overnight that is the fly in the ointment. We have nothing to cope with that, and really nothing that is going to be able to do it on the horzion either. What we do have though is aging coal generation that has planned shutdown dates.

 

[Brucey]

It's not designed to replace every coal station. That's what solar, wind and batteries will do, and have been doing. SH2 is about deep storage to supplement through periods of lower solar and wind generation as well as play a regular supply role on a daily basis.

We will still use some gas from time to time.

The progress is happening and will continue to do so. I agree it still needs a lot but there is a lot more coming. This is the proportion of NEM demand satisfied by fossil sources (coal, gas, oil, diesel) vs renewables:

View attachment 345001

So its $12 billion for something that has just above the output of the now shutdown Liddell coal power units (4*500MW).

Im just curious how much battery ESS could be bought for AUD12 billion....at $2 billion snowy 2.0 seemed like a reasonable value.