Interesting... Sunrun is allowing ESS to support the Grid during peak time

[holeydonut]

Interesting thing showed up in my inbox. It looks like Sunrun is taking steps to allow PG&E to command my ESS to grid-export at peak time. The incentive to do this is to effectively "load shift" banked off-peak solar production and export it at peak time to generate peak NEM credits. Plus they'll give me $100.

I pinged my Sunrun rep and she thinks this may be why PG&E ran me through the PTO ringer. I guess my install was flagged as one eligible for grid export so they wanted to make sure my interconnection agreement was NEM2-MT in order to safely do this grid export since my insurance is covering damages to their grid if they initiate an export of my energy back to them... and things don't go as expected.

I've checked online and I can't find much information about this program other than some news articles that popped up last year during the brownouts. I'm wondering what command(s) PG&E can issue remotely to initiate this.

Distributed Energy Helped Fight California’s Grid Outages, But It Could Do Much More

Battery and demand response providers say policy and market reforms could turn emergency help into stable, consistent grid relief.

www.greentechmedia.com

Edit: another link about this for SCE:

Sunrun to Turn Home Batteries Into Grid Resources for 2 Major Utilities

The leading rooftop installer will aggregate homes for Southern California Edison and a Con Ed utility in New York in a test of the virtual power plant concept.

www.greentechmedia.com

Anyway, no way in hell I'm signing up for this. I cannot control the maximum kWh they export on my behalf during one of the events. And I have no opt-in for this on the day(s) they pick. So there's a chance they run this program on hot overcast day, and I end up exporting what little power I have stored at 4 to 6pm. Then I proceed to take back peak energy from 7 to 9pm and just bear the cross of round-trip inefficiency.

Interestingly enough PG&E, CAISO, etc have wanted the residential homeowners who do this "help" to do so for free. Because doing it for a charge violates the monopoly rights of our favorite utilities.

“We delivered about 50 megawatts of relief to the grid on Friday evening — but we could have deployed about 50 megawatts more if all the policies were in place,” said Ted Ko, Stem’s vice president of policy and regulatory affairs. “What’s ironic is that the [CPUC] and CAISO have been putting up all these barriers to us participating, and then they called us and said, ‘Hey, can you do this for us for free?’”

 

[h2ofun]

Interesting thing showed up in my inbox. It looks like Sunrun is taking steps to allow PG&E to command my ESS to grid-export at peak time. The incentive to do this is to effectively "load shift" banked off-peak solar production and export it at peak time to generate peak NEM credits. Plus they'll give me $100.

I pinged my Sunrun rep and she thinks this may be why PG&E ran me through the PTO ringer. I guess my install was flagged as one eligible for grid export so they wanted to make sure my interconnection agreement was NEM2-MT in order to safely do this grid export since my insurance is covering damages to their grid if they initiate an export of my energy back to them... and things don't go as expected.

I've checked online and I can't find much information about this program other than some news articles that popped up last year during the brownouts. I'm wondering what command(s) PG&E can issue remotely to initiate this.

Distributed Energy Helped Fight California’s Grid Outages, But It Could Do Much More

Battery and demand response providers say policy and market reforms could turn emergency help into stable, consistent grid relief.

www.greentechmedia.com

Edit: another link about this for SCE:

Sunrun to Turn Home Batteries Into Grid Resources for 2 Major Utilities

The leading rooftop installer will aggregate homes for Southern California Edison and a Con Ed utility in New York in a test of the virtual power plant concept.

www.greentechmedia.com

View attachment 660368


Anyway, no way in hell I'm signing up for this. I cannot control the maximum kWh they export on my behalf during one of the events. And I have no opt-in for this on the day(s) they pick. So there's a chance they run this program on hot overcast day, and I end up exporting what little power I have stored at 4 to 6pm. Then I proceed to take back peak energy from 7 to 9pm and just bear the cross of round-trip inefficiency.

Interestingly enough PG&E, CAISO, etc have wanted the residential homeowners who do this "help" to do so for free. Because doing it for a charge violates the monopoly rights of our favorite utilities.

Interesting. Have to think about this more. So, what runs my house during peak? Assume this is not enough solar? Could they drain the batteries and then we have to use grid peak power?

Now, if they added the ability to grid charge the batteries in the winter, could be more interesting.


So, what are others thoughts? Now, if they offer this to me, and I was not put through the ringer. But, you are on NEM-MT, and I think I maybe on NEM-PS?

 

[jjrandorin]

They do this in other states, there are a few threads about it here from some of our members who sign up for such things. After my horrific experiences with SCE and their program to cycle air conditioners off (coupled with my nest thermostats), there is "no chance on gods green earth" that I will EVER sign up for any such program again, unless (for example) the powerwalls were 100% free to me.

I am less than "not interested" in sending my powerwall energy to anyone but me. Maybe thats selfish, but I feel I am "already helping" with exporting my solar.

I guess, for full disclosure, I should also state that I am not a person who signs up for "automatic payments" for anything. I want to "click the button" / make the payment / "write the virtual check" myself, when "I" click it, not when some company automatically removes it from my account.

By the same token, the only way I would consider this is if they paid me enough to make my powerwalls basically free in a year or two. Failing that, its not only "no" but " @#$@$#@# no" for me.

 

[holeydonut]

Interesting. Have to think about this more. So, what runs my house during peak? Assume this is not enough solar? Could they drain the batteries and then we have to use grid peak power?

Now, if they added the ability to grid charge the batteries in the winter, could be more interesting.


So, what are others thoughts? Now, if they offer this to me, and I was not put through the ringer. But, you are on NEM-MT, and I think I maybe on NEM-PS?

The news articles say that they usually leave 20% in reserve in case of a subsequent power outage.

But my concern is more the hottest days last year were days where it wasn't actually super bright & sunny. The ambient temp got up super high during August last year, and the solar production would have been harmed by the smoke/haze. So those were the days CAISO needed to find peaker energy and they had that issue with a natural gas plant going offline. Those days would have been terrible to take ESS energy from me since I wouldn't have generated much surplus since the solar would be encumbered.

My interconnection agreement is NEM2-MT. But my PG&E bill says NEM2-PS. However, I now have PG&E as a named insured on my insurance and as far as I can tell, I need to maintain that insurance. The $100 gift card seems like a crappy consolation for NEM2-MT.

 

[h2ofun]

They do this in other states, there are a few threads about it here from some of our members who sign up for such things. After my horrific experiences with SCE and their program to cycle air conditioners off (coupled with my nest thermostats), there is "no chance on gods green earth" that I will EVER sign up for any such program again, unless (for example) the powerwalls were 100% free to me.

I am less than "not interested" in sending my powerwall energy to anyone but me. Maybe thats selfish, but I feel I am "already helping" with exporting my solar.

I guess, for full disclosure, I should also state that I am not a person who signs up for "automatic payments" for anything. I want to "click the button" / make the payment / "write the virtual check" myself, when "I" click it, not when some company automatically removes it from my account.

By the same token, the only way I would consider this is if they paid me enough to make my powerwalls basically free in a year or two. Failing that, its not only "no" but " @#$@$#@# no" for me.

I would consider if they could get me some more batteries at a discount

 

[h2ofun]

The news articles say that they usually leave 20% in reserve in case of a subsequent power outage.

But my concern is more the hottest days last year were days where it wasn't actually super bright & sunny. The ambient temp got up super high during August last year, and the solar production would have been harmed by the smoke/haze. So those were the days CAISO needed to find peaker energy and they had that issue with a natural gas plant going offline. Those days would have been terrible to take ESS energy from me since I wouldn't have generated much surplus since the solar would be encumbered.

My interconnection agreement is NEM2-MT. But my PG&E bill says NEM2-PS. However, I now have PG&E as a named insured on my insurance and as far as I can tell, I need to maintain that insurance. The $100 gift card seems like a crappy consolation for NEM2-MT.

Still do not understand the difference, other than the insurance thing. Which still makes not sense. My why are some on this forum NEM-MT and others NEM-PS?

 

[holeydonut]

They do this in other states, there are a few threads about it here from some of our members who sign up for such things. After my horrific experiences with SCE and their program to cycle air conditioners off (coupled with my nest thermostats), there is "no chance on gods green earth" that I will EVER sign up for any such program again, unless (for example) the powerwalls were 100% free to me.

I am less than "not interested" in sending my powerwall energy to anyone but me. Maybe thats selfish, but I feel I am "already helping" with exporting my solar.

I guess, for full disclosure, I should also state that I am not a person who signs up for "automatic payments" for anything. I want to "click the button" / make the payment / "write the virtual check" myself, when "I" click it, not when some company automatically removes it from my account.

By the same token, the only way I would consider this is if they paid me enough to make my powerwalls basically free in a year or two. Failing that, its not only "no" but " @#$@$#@# no" for me.

Yeah, I feel like if they really wanted homeowners to participate in this program more, they wouldn't be such a-holes about blocking solar installs and battery installs. It's like they make it super difficult to get the ESS.

But once you get your system working they're like:

"Ok fine, so you finally got your batteries after we tried to block you five times. Now please let us use your batteries to make our grid more stable. Here's a $100 for your trouble."

 

[holeydonut]

Still do not understand the difference, other than the insurance thing. Which still makes not sense. My why are some on this forum NEM-MT and others NEM-PS?

PG&E likes you. So you're probably on NEM 1.0. PG&E wishes I would die in a fire (figuratively; from the 1990s memes). So I'm going to be moved to NEM FU.

 

[jhn_]

We do this in New England with National Grid and Eversource utilities. We signed up though because we don’t have TOU rates, so we make a profit by selling back the kWh from the batteries at a higher rate than our flat consumption rate. So it makes sense even if the utility drains the batteries and we buy power back from the grid.

 

[miimura]

Give me $1.00/kWh exported during Peak Days and I will sign up. They can take up to 33% of my total storage. That's about 8.5kWh per day. The Peak Day Pricing program, which is a separate thing, has up to 15 days per year. That would work out to $127/year.

 

[BGbreeder]

Thanks for sharing this @holeydonut. It might actually shed some light on why you were put through such a wringer. (Not that it was right!)

I don't get these one time offers of $100, or $25 for the thermostat, for an unlimited upside benefit to the utility. I am with @miimura that if they actually paid some reasonable peak pricing, I would consider it. For TOU-C rates? You have to be kidding.

All the best,

BG

 

[sorka]

I might consider this if I can by back that dollar amount of kwh with NO NBCs which would cover the 10% round trip storage loss.

 

[Mark_T]

I might consider this if I can by back that dollar amount of kwh with NO NBCs which would cover the 10% round trip storage loss.

That is similar to what we have in the UK with the Tesla VPP.

The Tesla Energy Plan has a single flat rate 24/7 for import/export and no daily fixed charges to cover the round-trip losses.

 

[Electrph]

They do this in other states, there are a few threads about it here from some of our members who sign up for such things. After my horrific experiences with SCE and their program to cycle air conditioners off (coupled with my nest thermostats), there is "no chance on gods green earth" that I will EVER sign up for any such program again, unless (for example) the powerwalls were 100% free to me.

I am less than "not interested" in sending my powerwall energy to anyone but me. Maybe thats selfish, but I feel I am "already helping" with exporting my solar.

I guess, for full disclosure, I should also state that I am not a person who signs up for "automatic payments" for anything. I want to "click the button" / make the payment / "write the virtual check" myself, when "I" click it, not when some company automatically removes it from my account.

By the same token, the only way I would consider this is if they paid me enough to make my powerwalls basically free in a year or two. Failing that, its not only "no" but " @#$@$#@# no" for me.

I know its not topic of OP but just curious .. if you wanted to share .. what was specific issue(s) you had SCE / Nest thermos ? ..I was ( might still be not sure) on program i signed up for in 2018 where SCE could turn up my nest by I think ~ 2-4 degrees during ‘rush hours“ in exchange I was given a one time $75 bill credit and earned prob ~ $30 year in credits ....anyway all they ever did was raise my thermo temp for a few hours always during the peak time .. but we could turn it back down w/o penalty ... maybe you were on an earlier / different program or had other issues / made your nest behave erratically ?
I know years ago pre smart thermo or even WiFi SCE had program where they would put a device on your ac compressor and could cycle it off in exchange for $

 

[jjrandorin]

I know its not topic of OP but just curious .. if you wanted to share .. what was specific issue(s) you had SCE / Nest thermos ? ..I was ( might still be not sure) on program i signed up for in 2018 where SCE could turn up my nest by I think ~ 2-4 degrees during ‘rush hours“ in exchange I was given a one time $75 bill credit and earned prob ~ $30 year in credits ....anyway all they ever did was raise my thermo temp for a few hours always during the peak time .. but we could turn it back down w/o penalty ... maybe you were on an earlier / different program or had other issues / made your nest behave erratically ?
I know years ago pre smart thermo or even WiFi SCE had program where they would put a device on your ac compressor and could cycle it off in exchange for $

I will send you a PM with the answer, so as to not go further off tangent here.

 

[holeydonut]

Yeah @jhn_, if PG&E actually paid a premium on top of the peak energy rates, I would be more enticed to let them take an allocation of my battery power (assuming I was also allowed to set a kWh minimum that remained for me).

But what PG&E/Sunrun wants is simply to pay me $100 and then my export to them is at peak rates. And with the way the NEM2-MT interconnection agreement is structured, I'd actually incur a NBC charge for having exported to the grid, and I don't get that back later when I have to use grid energy since my PW's were depleted.

@jjrandorin, Dude I take 50% of the thread off tangent to rant about PG&E... I can't imagine the Nest thing where the PoCo controls your AC would be bad here

BTW, I had two Nest thermostats and signed up for the "leap" reward where PG&E would turn off my AC's remotely from 4pm to like 7pm. It was terrrrrrible. The Nest would try to pre-cool the house, but then during peak time my house would get well into the high 80F in August. My wife only let this thing work one time. After that she just manually overrode the "leap" thing any time it kicked on because it was so painful.

Maybe signing up for the "leap" thing then un-enrolling a few weeks later put me on the "PG&E hates you list"? Who knows...

It took a few attempts to un-enroll from this program... it is not easy. I do not recommend signing up for it unless you have some trees that block the mid afternoon to evening sun. You should do your own test first to see if you can somehow pre-cool the house and ride the heat wave past 8pm on the days where it's 100F+ outside.

 

[jjrandorin]

Yeah @jhn_, if PG&E actually paid a premium on top of the peak energy rates, I would be more enticed to let them take an allocation of my battery power (assuming I was also allowed to set a kWh minimum that remained for me).

But what PG&E/Sunrun wants is simply to pay me $100 and then my export to them is at peak rates. And with the way the NEM2-MT interconnection agreement is structured, I'd actually incur a NBC charge for having exported to the grid, and I don't get that back later when I have to use grid energy since my PW's were depleted.

@jjrandorin, Dude I take 50% of the thread off tangent to rant about PG&E... I can't imagine the Nest thing where the PoCo controls your AC would be bad here

BTW, I had two Nest thermostats and signed up for the "leap" reward where PG&E would turn off my AC's remotely from 4pm to like 7pm. It was terrrrrrible. The Nest would try to pre-cool the house, but then during peak time my house would get well into the high 80F in August. My wife only let this thing work one time. After that she just manually overrode the "leap" thing any time it kicked on because it was so painful.

Maybe signing up for the "leap" thing then un-enrolling a few weeks later put me on the "PG&E hates you list"? Who knows...

It took a few attempts to un-enroll from this program... it is not easy. I do not recommend signing up for it unless you have some trees that block the mid afternoon to evening sun. You should do your own test first to see if you can somehow pre-cool the house and ride the heat wave past 8pm on the days where it's 100F+ outside.

Lol.. I take threads off tangent too, was just trying to be cognizant of the fact I do that sometimes. The TL ; DR version of my story is VERY similar to yours, with the exception that the program I was in was NOT able to be overridden at the thermostat. Like you, our home would get into the mid to high 80s at night, inside. It would be cooler outside than inside, but no breeze (and I didnt have a whole home fan or attic fan to bring air in. SCE had installed boxes on our house that allowed them to cycle off the AC.

In our case the AC was off from usually around 4pm to around 9pm, multiple days during a week, and usually on the hottest days (of course), as they were trying to reduce demand.

We were miserable, and, like you, we could not get out of the program until we hit some anniversary date or other. I have 2 nest thermostats because I have a dual zone AC system, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Upstairs was unbearable and thats where the master bedroom is.

My wife and I were miserable, and all I got was evil eye stares and questions like "you normally research everything to death, how did you not know this would happen?"

I kept asking to get off the program and when they finally let me off it, I told them to come get their boxes off my home (please). They tried to tell me that I could sign up for a plan that allowed me to override it whenever I wanted to, but I would receive less credit. I replied "I dont care about the credit, I wont ever participate in such a program again".

They (nest) keep sending me emails and alerts in the app to "sign up for ohmconnect!" "Sign up for rush hour rewards!" and I look at them and say "not only no but Q@$%$^@#$%%$^@#$%^@%^@^@ NO!" (to myself).

 

[Electrph]

Giving the power company ability to take from my powerwalls ... for a $100 gift card and some more NEM credits ... gonna be a hard pass for me as the kids say

 

[taphil]

Nah kids would say it’s dumb AF.