[jvm]

If consumers paid close to wholesale rates for their home energy they would be highly incentivized to do these sorts of things: they'd pay almost nothing (or maybe even less than nothing) in the day and big bucks from 5 PM to 8 PM. There would be whole industries helping people shift consumption to daylight hours. Unfortunately legislatures have consistently been acting to shield consumers from variable time of day costs, preventing behavior adjustment.

[ac29]

The most common rate plan in California (at least with PGE) is a time of use plan.

While the daytime rates are less expensive than the evening peak rates, both are very expensive compared to just about anywhere else.

[nostrademons]

It's nowhere near the price differential that wholesale is, though. Last I checked, PG&E charged 62c/kwh at peak, and 52c/kwh off-peak. Back in 2020 it was 29c/kwh peak and 22c/kwh off-peak. That's roughly a 25% difference, but the actual wholesale price is off by several factors.

[Spivak]

Well yeah because most people are away from home during those hours so there's little you can do. And workplaces, schools like that working hours are when electricity is cheap.

Workers might start demanding WFH or that their leisure hours be during the day and we can't have that.

[nostrademons]

The point is to enable markets for the technologies (many existing today!) that would let you time-shift effectively. Smart lights and smart thermostats are nifty gimmicks today; if electricity cost 100x more at primetime, they'd become critical investments. Insulating and air-sealing your home is known technology, but often not cost-effective when you can just burn a little more natural gas. Workplace charging is a perk, not a deciding factor for where people choose to accept a job. If the consequences of people's decisions were priced into the cost of them, people might make different decisions.

[tennis_80]

Yeah this is all a thing in the UK where there’s a lot of highly variable Solar & Wind electricity generation, see https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/

Disclaimer: I work for Octopus Energy Group.

[RobinL]

I don't understand why the government don't do more to support these kind of tariffs that incentive demand shifting.. it seems such a powerful way to make the grid greener without huge infrastructure projects