California Renewable Energy Legislation / Progress

[Dave EV]

Has CAISO ever exported as much power as it is currently? 5 GW currently getting exported!

Is there any way to tell where that power is getting pushed?

It's too bad we still need to keep all those gas turbines spinning. But CAISO is currently below NET zero in terms of carbon emissions!

I have been pushing as much of my EV charging from 10 AM - 2 PM for this reason - one, to self consume more of my own solar, but also to help absorb all this solar on the grid right now.

California ISO - Supply, Today's Outlook

View real-time and historical data on generation resources, including renewables, currently on the system.

www.caiso.com

 

[andy92782]

Has CAISO ever exported as much power as it is currently? 5 GW currently getting exported!

Is there any way to tell where that power is getting pushed?

It's too bad we still need to keep all those gas turbines spinning. But CAISO is currently below NET zero in terms of carbon emissions!

I have been pushing as much of my EV charging from 10 AM - 2 PM for this reason - one, to self consume more of my own solar, but also to help absorb all this solar on the grid right now.

California ISO - Supply, Today's Outlook

View real-time and historical data on generation resources, including renewables, currently on the system.

www.caiso.com

View attachment 931116

Sorry if I'm late to the party. Can someone explain why Tesla's own Superchargers here in CA cost >$0.50/kWh during mid-day on days like these when by all accounts juice is practically free, then lower the cost late in the evening when it's almost guaranteed the energy is coming from fossil fuels? It seems counterintuitive. Maybe if it were August/September/October when we're all cranking up our AC in the middle of the day but 4/23/23 was by all accounts a nice, cool sunny day.

 

[bkp_duke]

Sorry if I'm late to the party. Can someone explain why Tesla's own Superchargers here in CA cost >$0.50/kWh during mid-day on days like these when by all accounts juice is practically free, then lower the cost late in the evening when it's almost guaranteed the energy is coming from fossil fuels? It seems counterintuitive. Maybe if it were August/September/October when we're all cranking up our AC in the middle of the day but 4/23/23 was by all accounts a nice, cool sunny day.

Because they have to buy power from the utilities, and that power is sold as per kwh+demand (and demand charges for something like a supercharger are sky high, usually multiples of the per kwh charge).

Doesn't matter if there is a surplus of solar, it's being "fed through" the utilities who are marking it up.

 

[mspohr]

Sorry if I'm late to the party. Can someone explain why Tesla's own Superchargers here in CA cost >$0.50/kWh during mid-day on days like these when by all accounts juice is practically free, then lower the cost late in the evening when it's almost guaranteed the energy is coming from fossil fuels? It seems counterintuitive. Maybe if it were August/September/October when we're all cranking up our AC in the middle of the day but 4/23/23 was by all accounts a nice, cool sunny day.

Part of this is may be the legacy of our fossil fuel generation infrastructure.
Fossil fuel plants take a long time to start up and shut down so they become the preferred source even when they are more expensive. It's easy to curtail cheap solar and wind.
(I just read an article about Poland curtailing wind and solar in favor of coal electricity plants for the same reason.)

 

[andy92782]

Part of this is may be the legacy of our fossil fuel generation infrastructure.
Fossil fuel plants take a long time to start up and shut down so they become the preferred source even when they are more expensive. It's easy to curtail cheap solar and wind.
(I just read an article about Poland curtailing wind and solar in favor of coal electricity plants for the same reason.)

Here are SDGE's ToU residential rates:

You can clearly see that mid-day cost when the temps are low and the sun is shining is low (14.5c), and yet if you visit a Tesla Supercharger in San Diego County during these times you'll be paying roughly ~3X that.

 

[mspohr]

Here are SDGE's ToU residential rates:

View attachment 931361

You can clearly see that mid-day cost when the temps are low and the sun is shining is low (14.5c), and yet if you visit a Tesla Supercharger in San Diego County during these times you'll be paying roughly ~3X that.

Utility companies have different pricing for "industrial" users which include "demand charges" which are very high for Superchargers.
Can't really compare to residential rates.

 

[bkp_duke]

Utility companies have different pricing for "industrial" users which include "demand charges" which are very high for Superchargers.
Can't really compare to residential rates.

Agreed. Not remotely comparable to residential rates.

Basically, the high Demand seen in a billing period, is tacked on to the entire bill. So if that supercharger station is full, and there are no megapacks or solar to reduce demand charges, Tesla is paying probably much more than they are charging you. This is why they typically put megapacks and solar with superchargers, to smooth out the demand curve.

Excellent primer on demand charges here (for the guy that asked the question about pricing):

Energy Resiliency Information & Resources | Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions

Energy resiliency information and resources for your business from Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions

sustainablesolutions.duke-energy.com

 

[cpa]

Just to sort of amplify the above, usage is measured and billed in kilowatt-hours. For example (all amounts are illustrative, not actual) a Supercharger might deliver 1 million kilowatt-hours in a billing period at various times throughout the 30-day period. If we assume a 25¢ per kWh rate, then the energy portion of the bill would be $250,000.

In addition the aforementioned demand charges are added to the bill. This is calculated on a kilowatt basis (note there is no time element) for the highest amount of electricity drawn from the grid in any 15-minute interval at any time during the billing period. Again, for example, from 6:15-6:30PM on day 18 of the billing period, the Supercharger delivered 2,450 kilowatts at 6:26. If the demand charge per kilowatt is $19.75, then there would be an additional $48,387 tacked onto the bill. Ignoring other add ons, the total bill for that month would be $298,387, or nearly 30¢ per kWh.

It should be noted that if the Supercharger were only open for that one day during the period where it drew 2,450 kilowatts and delivered a total of 10,000 kWh, the bill would be $2,500 for the juice plus the $48,387 for the demand charge, or $50,887. This equates to over $5 per kWh for the billing period.

So, the greater the usage that is beneath the peak demand amount, the lower overall per kWh charge that Tesla has to pay.

 

[RubberToe]

Is there any way to tell where that power is getting pushed?

@Dave EV Could be that is handled by the WEIM. You would have to dig pretty deep to understand the entirety of the operation...

I believe that the short version is that CAISO is controlling the power transfers between quite a few of the providers and electric utilities in a large region, that keeps growing.

HowItWorks - Western Energy Imbalance Market

www.westerneim.com

 

[SageBrush]

Can someone explain why Tesla's own Superchargers here in CA cost >$0.50/kWh during mid-day on days like these when by all accounts juice is practically free, then

Demand charges mostly, but also volumetric costs because not all energy is the free-at-noon variety. Both Tesla and the utility do some degree of averaging so that some hours of the day are not in excess of $2.5 per kWh

 

[RubberToe]

For a while it was looking like we would hit 5TWh of total Solar production. Looks like this will need to wait until next year. They changed the format of the provided data and no longer give a "renewable" number so my second graph is missing some data at the end. They now track a "Hybrid" category which I don't know how to integrate. I may just add the wind and solar together, and eat the big drop due to not having geothermal or the other renewable sources. Total power has been trending down, but with the large number of EVs being deployed and how much electricity they use, probably going to see that increase. And the gasoline refining, which had been coming down, bumped up quite a bit this year too so far. Maybe lots of people still flush with cash going on driving vacations. Though I do think these numbers will come down too due to the EV effect.