Tesla VPP vs Ohmconnect

[garrity]

For powerwall owners who are net exporters Ohmconnect is much more lucrative then Tesla VPP at this point.

If you do the bare minimum and set your reserve and select export everything you will quickly reach the max payout of $1 for every 635watts exported. Which comes out to about $15.74 per 1 hour event. No gaming involved.

Can you game the system? Yes you certainly can and I'm sure ohmconnect can see it very easily. (It's all about the base line) Will they care and do something about it? IDK, but I doubt it, since they will also reap the benefits of sending more energy to PGE. Will PGE care IDK if they will or not, because you're still saving them huge amounts of money and energy.

Since August 17, Tesla VPP has had a single 3 hour event. Which a fully charged PW would not be able to participate for the full 3 hours. Lets say you get credit for 24 kwh of juice for 2 PW. so 2x PW would get you $48 at $2 per Kwh

Since August 17 Ohmconnect. has had 6 events (3 x ohm hours and 3 x autoohm events). And tomorrow there is seventh event since Aug17th and it's a special one where I can get a $10 Starbucks GC , that's new .

Actual pay out for 5 events is $77 already paid to my paypal account. They are still calculating the 6th event which happened yesterday and I should get the result by tomorrow or Saturday typically.

There are ohmhours which you last 1 hour and you get a day in advance notice to opt out. And there are autoohm events which usually last 30 minutes and give you 15 or less minutes notice and rarely last upto an hour.

Key things:
ohmhours last 1 hour only (rarely 2 hours) which allows you to have a reserve after the event.

ohmevents occur much more frequently then Tesla VPP at this point. From July 14-Aug 24 there have been 20 events. $344 actual money in the bank

ohmhours have typically occurred between 7-8pm in June and July. They are now occuring between 6-7pm. Knowing what hour they occur makes a big difference. When will the next Tesla VPP event occur ????

 

[KHYE]

Thank you for sharing this. I only participated in VPP so far. From what I read, you can only join one of them but not both?

 

[garrity]

Thank you for sharing this. I only participated in VPP so far. From what I read, you can only join one of them but not both?

Correct. You can only join one program at a time. If anyone knows of other similar programs please let me know.

Of note. my experience has been with PGE, IDK how ohmconnect works with SCE, SDGE , New York and in Texas.

 

[cwied]

The things I don't like about OhmConnect are the opacity of their programs (i.e. how much money do they make, how much money does the customer get), their emphasis of referral programs (some customers have made thousands of dollars on referrals and don't really participate meaningfully on the energy side), and the uncertainty of their business model. I was a member for a couple of years before they completely changed their plans and apparently business model. It looks like the plans changed a little more since then.

I am happier earning a little less money with Tesla because I know this is a plan that has more chances of longevity. I do wish the Tesla VPP had more events, but I believe the terms of the program guarantee a minimum of 20 event hours, which should be enough to get a reasonable bonus.

 

[MX100DM3P2017]

The things I don't like about OhmConnect are the opacity of their programs (i.e. how much money do they make, how much money does the customer get), their emphasis of referral programs (some customers have made thousands of dollars on referrals and don't really participate meaningfully on the energy side), and the uncertainty of their business model. I was a member for a couple of years before they completely changed their plans and apparently business model. It looks like the plans changed a little more since then.

I am happier earning a little less money with Tesla because I know this is a plan that has more chances of longevity. I do wish the Tesla VPP had more events, but I believe the terms of the program guarantee a minimum of 20 event hours, which should be enough to get a reasonable bonus.

I agree and had similar experience with OhmConnect here in SCE territory. It is my understanding that Tesla VPP is in beta only with PG&E and SCE. It is limited to how many can join and this is not yet a solution offered to the general public. I would assume once VPP becomes approved for all customers, we will see far higher participation from the utilities which should generate far more events. Hopefully, we will see home battery storage with VPP benefits become available for all California. The threat of the details remain to be seen. We all know how the CPUC meets behind closed doors with PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E to come up with the threat of NEM 3.0 to destroy home solar. If VPP becomes too big, don't be surprised if the CPUC comes out with future charges to destroy benefits to the consumer.

 

[wwu123]

The things I don't like about OhmConnect are the opacity of their programs (i.e. how much money do they make, how much money does the customer get), their emphasis of referral programs (some customers have made thousands of dollars on referrals and don't really participate meaningfully on the energy side), and the uncertainty of their business model. I was a member for a couple of years before they completely changed their plans and apparently business model. It looks like the plans changed a little more since then.

I am happier earning a little less money with Tesla because I know this is a plan that has more chances of longevity. I do wish the Tesla VPP had more events, but I believe the terms of the program guarantee a minimum of 20 event hours, which should be enough to get a reasonable bonus.

The numbers are opaque, but I give them some benefit of the doubt, as they're also part of a market driven process. IIRC, I googled some documents that the DRP process is bid out every few years by the utilities, and the utilities pay the lowest bidders for a certain amount of contracted Demand Response capacity. So that bidding process drives the DRP providers to be both efficient and profitable within a market-driven system. If they can make more money while providing better rewards to consumers than other DRP bidders, and certainly better than what the IOU"s own monopolies would offer, then more power to them.

That OhmConnect appears to be a fairly small startup, and has been for a while, suggests they're not making money hand over fist. In fact worrying they won't be around for long would suggest they aren't making enough money, not too much....

 

[garrity]

If VPP becomes too big, don't be surprised if the CPUC comes out with future charges to destroy benefits to the consumer.

I'm hoping that VPP/Ohmconnect becomes so big that PGE becomes dependent on it and can't afford to alienate powerwall and Vehicle to Grid owners.

If you have enough capacity to spare about 4.5 kwh per powerwall per event and still have enough reserve to last you until your next recharge you really should consider joining Tesla VPP/Ohmconnect.

BTW ~$450 from Ohmconnect plus a $10 Starbucks GC earned since End of June ohmevents pretty much go away when the weather cools so maybe 1.5 months more of earnings left.

 

[garrity]

Bottomline Ohmconnect compensated higher than Tesla VPP from 8/17 to 9/9 for me YMMV.:

$1,010.09 for Ohmconnect vs. estimated $509.68 for Tesla VPP

Breakdown of ohmconnect earnings: $778.57 during actual flex alerts + $131.52 non flex alert events + $100 giftcards total $1,010.09. The total from ohmconnect are actual monies transferred into my bank account.

Of note, after $400 of earnings Ohmconnect asks for a w-9. This may be time for your kids to get involved in energy arbitrage.

Tesla VPP earnings estimated using same (baseline used by ohmconnect + net export) x 2


Things that make ohmconnect better so far,

they have more events
their events are usually only 1 hour so you don't run out of battery during 3 hour events
they have surge bonus multiplication
they give out giftcards on top of compensation

Background: ohmconnect is a demand response program that gets paid by PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, New York ConEd and some Texas entity to get people to reduce their electric use during selected high demand periods.

They've been around since 2014 and there was a period of time where they compensate very poorly for solar users often punishing them with negative watts on cloudy days even when they reduced their usage. They have amended their ways and no longer punish you or rely on streaks to gain maximum points. You get maximum benefit when you reduce your usage by certain percentages. The maximum benefit is achieved when you reduce your use by 80% or more. Which is child's play when you have a battery.

You convert the watts you save into cash, gift cards, and purchases from their store:
The max exchange rate for cash is 63,500 watts for $100 cash. Gift cards from Cold Stone, Starbucks, Home Depot, Bass Pro, REI, Regal Cinemas, Amazon get redemeed at a rate of 59,630 watts for $100 face value



It's all about the base:

The baseline for ohmconnect is determined by the average amount of use during the last 10 NON event weekdays. And the avg use of the last 4 NON event weekends.

Here are examples of actual ohmconnect baselines:

sister visits on weekends and charges during peak times:
View attachment 852448


some use above baseline
View attachment 852450

letting powerwall power house and solar discharge to grid which is what typically happens

View attachment 852449

The higher/more positive the baseline is (meaning you were importing/using electricity from the grid) the more you will earn because ohmconnect's main goal and metric is to reduce your use below your baseline.

A positive baseline occurs when you are importing from the grid. It is usually considered anathema to have a positive baseline during peak times, because that means you are paying at the peak rate for your electrons. Let's say you you go on vacation and your house sitter decides to blast the AC run the pool pump, vaccuum , wash the dishes, do laundry between 5-6pm importing 4kWh from the grid each day. Now your baseline is 4kWh. With house sitter gone, and an ohmevent occurs -4kWh ohmconnect calculates that you reduced your usage from 4 to -9 = total difference of 13kWh.

A negative baseline occurs when you regularly export to the grid by solar or use export everything, it will be subtracted from the total amount you dump to the grid during an ohmevent. For example, if you regularly net export 4kWh of solar to the grid between 5-6pm. your avg baseline will be -4kWh. So if you then use export everything during an event from one PW (assume max 5kWh/ hour) your net export will by -9kWh Ohmconnect will compensate you for the extra 5kWh that you sent beyond what you normally send.


California Tesla VPP have so far only occurred during California Flex Alerts

There are two types of events with ohmconnect:

1 ohmhours which are announced 24 or more hours ahead and last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Usually 1. These days will not be used in computing avg baseline.

2 autoohms which are supposed to be announced 15 minutes ahead, but have been occurring with less than 2 minutes warning lately. which can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours . These days will not be used in computing avg baseline. They will negate any attempt of gaming on the day they occur. eg you start gaming at 7pm then at 7:45p an autoohm is announced the ISO today app might help you predict when events will occur.



Let the games begin. So you can absolutely manipulate the baseline. Imagine what you can do with an EV charging during peak times. Which also shows how only a few people can game the baseline because it will cost you dearly. Which doesn't matter if you have tons of credits to sell back to PGE for pennies on the dollar at true up.

Ohmevents typically occur between 7-8pm early summer than moves to 6-7pm late summer. So you can judiciously tweek your baseline with a little less peril


If you don't have tons of credit, I don't advise trying to game the baseline.















DATA;


I have an aprox 9kW solar system with 2 powerwalls set to 20% reserve.

format adapted from

Redhill_qik​

Day	Date	Period	Hours	Exported	Baseline	Ohmconnect	VPP est
Wed	8/17/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	22 est		no event	$44
Wed	8/31/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	21.73	0.48	$44.43	$44.42
Thu	9/1/2022	6:00-7:00pm	1	19.36	4.18	$43.37	$47.08
Sat	9/3/2022	6:00-8:00pm	2	13.23	8.63	$40.72	$43.72
Sun	9/4/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	24.23	9.04	$100.34 x2 surge $20 Starbucks	$66.54
Mon/Holiday	9/5/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	24.88	8.63	$135 x3 surge $20 Cold Stone	$67.02
Tue	9/6/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	19.89	5.79	$160.97 x4 surge $50 Amazon	$51.36
Wed	9/7/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	22.22	2.66	$166.17 x4 surge	$49.76
Thu	9/8/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	23.23	2.66	$87.57 x2 surge	$51.78
Thu	9/9/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	22 est		no event	$44
		Total	27			$778.57 + $90 Gift cards	$509.68

Non flex alert events from 8/17-9/9

8/22 ohmhour 6-7pm -10.39 $23.57

8/23 autoohm 6:15-7:15 $21.54

8/23 autohmo 6:45-7:15 $10.37

8/24 autoohm 6:45-7:15 $10.78

8/26 ohmhour 6-7p $23.18 $10 starbucks gift card

8/27 autoohm 6:45 -7pm $6.10

8/28 autoohm 6:45-7pm 2.2 $5.58

8/30 autoohm 545-715 -13.65 $30.40


view of recent events did not participate in autoohms to save battery for surge hours.

View attachment 852452

as far as I can see there is no long term commitment agreement you can quit and join another DRP at anytime. If you do find something better please let me know.


Caveat don't join ohmconnect before you make sure you can collect your earnings from Tesla VPP events.

don't have the export everything button and want to join ohmconnect join ohmconnect then apply for the tesla vpp via the tesla app. you will get the export button and be rejected by tesla vpp because already signed on to drp. at least that's how it worked for 2 of my friends


iso today app: California ISO - ISO Today

changing demand response program

Connect Utility

www.ohmconnect.com

 

[Redhill_qik]

Bottomline Ohmconnect compensated higher than Tesla VPP from 8/17 to 9/9 for me YMMV.:

$1,010.09 for Ohmconnect vs. estimated $509.68 for Tesla VPP

Breakdown of ohmconnect earnings: $778.57 during actual flex alerts + $131.52 non flex alert events + $100 giftcards total $1,010.09. The total from ohmconnect are actual monies transferred into my bank account.

Of note, after $400 of earnings Ohmconnect asks for a w-9. This may be time for your kids to get involved in energy arbitrage.

Tesla VPP earnings estimated using same (baseline used by ohmconnect + net export) x 2


Things that make ohmconnect better so far,

they have more events
their events are usually only 1 hour so you don't run out of battery during 3 hour events
they have surge bonus multiplication
they give out giftcards on top of compensation

Background: ohmconnect is a demand response program that gets paid by PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, New York ConEd and some Texas entity to get people to reduce their electric use during selected high demand periods.

They've been around since 2014 and there was a period of time where they compensate very poorly for solar users often punishing them with negative watts on cloudy days even when they reduced their usage. They have amended their ways and no longer punish you or rely on streaks to gain maximum points. You get maximum benefit when you reduce your usage by certain percentages. The maximum benefit is achieved when you reduce your use by 80% or more. Which is child's play when you have a battery.

You convert the watts you save into cash, gift cards, and purchases from their store:
The max exchange rate for cash is 63,500 watts for $100 cash. Gift cards from Cold Stone, Starbucks, Home Depot, Bass Pro, REI, Regal Cinemas, Amazon get redemeed at a rate of 59,630 watts for $100 face value



It's all about the base:

The baseline for ohmconnect is determined by the average amount of use during the last 10 NON event weekdays. And the avg use of the last 4 NON event weekends.

Here are examples of actual ohmconnect baselines:

sister visits on weekends and charges during peak times:
View attachment 852448


some use above baseline
View attachment 852450

letting powerwall power house and solar discharge to grid which is what typically happens

View attachment 852449

The higher/more positive the baseline is (meaning you were importing/using electricity from the grid) the more you will earn because ohmconnect's main goal and metric is to reduce your use below your baseline.

A positive baseline occurs when you are importing from the grid. It is usually considered anathema to have a positive baseline during peak times, because that means you are paying at the peak rate for your electrons. Let's say you you go on vacation and your house sitter decides to blast the AC run the pool pump, vaccuum , wash the dishes, do laundry between 5-6pm importing 4kWh from the grid each day. Now your baseline is 4kWh. With house sitter gone, and an ohmevent occurs -4kWh ohmconnect calculates that you reduced your usage from 4 to -9 = total difference of 13kWh.

A negative baseline occurs when you regularly export to the grid by solar or use export everything, it will be subtracted from the total amount you dump to the grid during an ohmevent. For example, if you regularly net export 4kWh of solar to the grid between 5-6pm. your avg baseline will be -4kWh. So if you then use export everything during an event from one PW (assume max 5kWh/ hour) your net export will by -9kWh Ohmconnect will compensate you for the extra 5kWh that you sent beyond what you normally send.


California Tesla VPP have so far only occurred during California Flex Alerts

There are two types of events with ohmconnect:

1 ohmhours which are announced 24 or more hours ahead and last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Usually 1. These days will not be used in computing avg baseline.

2 autoohms which are supposed to be announced 15 minutes ahead, but have been occurring with less than 2 minutes warning lately. which can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours . These days will not be used in computing avg baseline. They will negate any attempt of gaming on the day they occur. eg you start gaming at 7pm then at 7:45p an autoohm is announced the ISO today app might help you predict when events will occur.



Let the games begin. So you can absolutely manipulate the baseline. Imagine what you can do with an EV charging during peak times. Which also shows how only a few people can game the baseline because it will cost you dearly. Which doesn't matter if you have tons of credits to sell back to PGE for pennies on the dollar at true up.

Ohmevents typically occur between 7-8pm early summer than moves to 6-7pm late summer. So you can judiciously tweek your baseline with a little less peril


If you don't have tons of credit, I don't advise trying to game the baseline.















DATA;


I have an aprox 9kW solar system with 2 powerwalls set to 20% reserve.

format adapted from

Redhill_qik​

Day	Date	Period	Hours	Exported	Baseline	Ohmconnect	VPP est
Wed	8/17/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	22 est		no event	$44
Wed	8/31/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	21.73	0.48	$44.43	$44.42
Thu	9/1/2022	6:00-7:00pm	1	19.36	4.18	$43.37	$47.08
Sat	9/3/2022	6:00-8:00pm	2	13.23	8.63	$40.72	$43.72
Sun	9/4/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	24.23	9.04	$100.34 x2 surge $20 Starbucks	$66.54
Mon/Holiday	9/5/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	24.88	8.63	$135 x3 surge $20 Cold Stone	$67.02
Tue	9/6/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	19.89	5.79	$160.97 x4 surge $50 Amazon	$51.36
Wed	9/7/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	22.22	2.66	$166.17 x4 surge	$49.76
Thu	9/8/2022	6:00-9:00pm	3	23.23	2.66	$87.57 x2 surge	$51.78
Thu	9/9/2022	5:00-8:00pm	3	22 est		no event	$44
		Total	27			$778.57 + $90 Gift cards	$509.68

Non flex alert events from 8/17-9/9

8/22 ohmhour 6-7pm -10.39 $23.57

8/23 autoohm 6:15-7:15 $21.54

8/23 autohmo 6:45-7:15 $10.37

8/24 autoohm 6:45-7:15 $10.78

8/26 ohmhour 6-7p $23.18 $10 starbucks gift card

8/27 autoohm 6:45 -7pm $6.10

8/28 autoohm 6:45-7pm 2.2 $5.58

8/30 autoohm 545-715 -13.65 $30.40


view of recent events did not participate in autoohms to save battery for surge hours.

View attachment 852452

as far as I can see there is no long term commitment agreement you can quit and join another DRP at anytime. If you do find something better please let me know.


Caveat don't join ohmconnect before you make sure you can collect your earnings from Tesla VPP events.

don't have the export everything button and want to join ohmconnect join ohmconnect then apply for the tesla vpp via the tesla app. you will get the export button and be rejected by tesla vpp because already signed on to drp. at least that's how it worked for 2 of my friends


iso today app: California ISO - ISO Today

changing demand response program

Connect Utility

www.ohmconnect.com

That is a lot more compensation than VPP and makes me wonder where the money is coming from to pay for the program.

I want to make sure that I understand this correctly. In order to make the most of this you need to have the Export Everything option available to you, that you don't normally use, but that you turn on when the Ohmconnect event happens so that you can export as much as possible. Is that right?

If the program is fiscally managed well, I would expect that they would scrutinize the highest earning behavior to understand it better. I don't think that having a Powerwall and dumping to the grid is what the program is intended to reward.

 

[garrity]

That is a lot more compensation than VPP and makes me wonder where the money is coming from to pay for the program.

I want to make sure that I understand this correctly. In order to make the most of this you need to have the Export Everything option available to you, that you don't normally use, but that you turn on when the Ohmconnect event happens so that you can export as much as possible. Is that right?

If the program is fiscally managed well, I would expect that they would scrutinise the highest earning behaviour to understand it better. I don't think that having a Powerwall and dumping to the grid is what the program is intended to reward.

If you turn on the export everything button and leave it there ohmconnect puts your PW into standby before the event discharges the PW during the event and turns it back to regular powering the home after the event happens. its set and forget. You get 1200 watts bonus each 1 hour event for registering your PW with them and letting them control it. Although you can easily wrest control from them using the app. They know you have a pw and they know you are dumping during an event.

AutoOhms | OhmHours | What are AutoOhms and OhmHours their whole goal is to earn money by saving and providing enough energy to prevent peaker plants from firing up during periods of high demand. They really want power during demand events hence the 4 x surge bonus and gift cards rewards. The highest price on iso today i've seen has been $2,300 which doesn't cover compensation for 4 x surge payouts so IDK where the money is coming from.

Admittedly, this is NEW for everyone So I don't know if the rewards will continue to be so generous. But events still happen and Pge is apparently willing to pay. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Having Tesla VPP get involved will keep the competition going as DRP's vie for control of PW's not to mention V2G options in the future.

There is an ohmhour event today 9/14/2022 from 4-5pm I have no idea why It's not hot and there is plenty of backup power according to ISO today maybe there's a fire or windstorm somewhere. It's another $15 coming my way.

 

[tfan2018]

That is a lot more compensation than VPP and makes me wonder where the money is coming from to pay for the program.

I want to make sure that I understand this correctly. In order to make the most of this you need to have the Export Everything option available to you, that you don't normally use, but that you turn on when the Ohmconnect event happens so that you can export as much as possible. Is that right?

If the program is fiscally managed well, I would expect that they would scrutinize the highest earning behavior to understand it better. I don't think that having a Powerwall and dumping to the grid is what the program is intended to reward.

There was already a major evaluation of earnings within the past year. Export everything is a new functionality added this year, I’m sure they will be adjusting the program again to limit the potential earnings.

 

[garrity]

There was already a major evaluation of earnings within the past year. Export everything is a new functionality added this year, I’m sure they will be adjusting the program again to limit the potential earnings.

I’m sure they will adjust. How did they adjust previously?

It would seem like they would want to attract more pw’s to make a bigger impact

Anyways. I’m a PW mercenary. Willing to hire out to the highest bidder. Btw there’s another ohmhour happening tomorrow between 6-7pm. Why?? Idk. But I’ll take any help to pay off my Pw

 

[tfan2018]

I’m sure they will adjust. How did they adjust previously?

It would seem like they would want to attract more pw’s to make a bigger impact

Anyways. I’m a PW mercenary. Willing to hire out to the highest bidder. Btw there’s another ohmhour happening tomorrow between 6-7pm. Why?? Idk. But I’ll take any help to pay off my Pw

Previously the earnings were 5-10x more and there were bonuses for steaks so the earnings kept snowballing.

 

[Mahkus]

Ohmconnect still "penalizes" solar users by comparing their baseline reduction to 2000 watts. I also have east facing panels, so no production during usual ohmhours. So if my normal use is 200 watt hours and I reduce by 50% to 100 they see it as 100/2000 = 5% reduction. Goodbye status discounts. Once they started tying their summer give aways to status I quit and joined Powerwall.

VPP = can't even notice it happening
Ohmconnect = sitting in the dark with the AC off

Ohmconnect isn't worth it for solar users with batteries.

 

[garrity]

Ohmconnect still "penalizes" solar users by comparing their baseline reduction to 2000 watts. I also have east facing panels, so no production during usual ohmhours. So if my normal use is 200 watt hours and I reduce by 50% to 100 they see it as 100/2000 = 5% reduction. Goodbye status discounts. Once they started tying their summer give aways to status I quit and joined Powerwall.

VPP = can't even notice it happening
Ohmconnect = sitting in the dark with the AC off

Ohmconnect isn't worth it for solar users with batteries.

In PGE country its your actual baseline average . There is no 2000 watts to be found in their calculations here. I posted actual baseline figures from ohmconnect but it says you have to have an upgrade to view it.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I just tried posting a baseline screen shot looks like people can see it now. Its the example of a high usage baseline.

$900 cash+ $100 gift cards and growing may be peanuts to some, but its worth it for me.

 

[garrity]

I thought $1,000. Vs $500 would be self explanatory. But I think I may have muddled things with too much verbiage

Here are some pictures from my ohmconnect account and you can draw your own conclusions

You don’t have to sit in the dark with the ac off to make bank. But it does help if you do

 

[wwu123]

In PGE country its your actual baseline average . There is no 2000 watts to be found in their calculations here. I posted actual baseline figures from ohmconnect but it says you have to have an upgrade to view it.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I just tried posting a baseline screen shot looks like people can see it now. Its the example of a high usage baseline.

$900 cash+ $100 gift cards and growing may be peanuts to some, but its worth it for me.

I have only solar, no Powerwalls, so I have no stake in this debate - I can't do VPP, only Ohmconnect..

The 2000 watt baseline is only for calculating streak higher-tier status, i.e. Gold, Platinum, Diamond which provides non-trivial discount multipliers on cashing out, so effectively multiplies your earnings by up to 30% (for Diamond), not just for that event, but all past events you haven't yet cashed out. Brings the payout to up to $1.50 per kwh, again on all past events, if you say redeem for Amazon gift cards (good as cash in my household). And as @garrity noted earlier, there were 2X to 4X surge bonuses most of last week - so 4X x $1.50 = potential $6 per kwh earnings on that particular event.

The 2000w streak baseline should be fairly trivial to game for Powerwall users - you should be able to hit 80% of 2000w = 1.6 kwh reduction for Diamond every time if you're dumping your Powerwall during OhmHours anyways. It's only onerous for solar-only users like me - how can I reduce 1.6kwh on a baseline of say 300 watts?

I think the biggest consideration for Powerwall users is how much manual effort you're willing to put in - the VPP is pretty hands-off, while for OhmConnect you'll have to manually set Export Everything at the start of each OhmHour. If you are able to go manual, I agree with @garrity, OhmConnect looks more lucrative at present, esp with many more events per year (about 100). And if you already automated Export Everything on daily basis, you will need to manually game either program to achieve any benefit from load-reduction events, so it's a wash.

The big restructuring of OhmConnect came about 18 months ago. They changed the tier multipliers so people who had long consecutive streaks weren't making 5X-10X each and everytime. But otherwise I don't think they care about Powerwalls, any more than they care whether you shut off a large central A/C unit - both can "reduce baseline load" by 5kw, it doesn't matter to their contracts with the IOU's how the load reduction is achieved.

How is it paid for when the highest spot price was only $2300 / MWhr, and in most OhmHours is lower than the consumer payout? IMHO, the scale of the DRP's is so small at this point, they are still merely demonstration programs that are competitively bid out every few years, I believe OhmConnect gets paid not on spot prices but guaranteed contract as long as they fulfill a certain amount of load reduction - so the program does not need to be lower than spot pricing. Plus there are two signifcant benefits harder to quantify - 1) DRP's avoid huge capital costs for building new peaker infrastructure, as well as more transmission lines, 2) in extreme grid situations like the heat wave, what good is a $2300 spot price, if we're facing brown-out because there is no peaker infrastructure left to turn on? In that case, paying effective $6000 spot price is fine, because demand-response is the only thing left to "turn on" at that point....

 

[Redhill_qik]

I thought $1,000. Vs $500 would be self explanatory. But I think I may have muddled things with too much verbiage

Here are some pictures from my ohmconnect account and you can draw your own conclusions

You don’t have to sit in the dark with the ac off to make bank. But it does help if you do

Are you calculating in your $1,000 total the additional benefit that you are getting for being in the Diamond Tier? Also, in one of the screenshots for I think 9/14, it shows your baseline as -4.58kWh, so in order to benefit from the program for that one you need to export even more than that average?

 

[garrity]

Are you calculating in your $1,000 total the additional benefit that you are getting for being in the Diamond Tier? Also, in one of the screenshots for I think 9/14, it shows your baseline as -4.58kWh, so in order to benefit from the program for that one you need to export even more than that average?

You get diamond tier by decreasing usage by 80% which is pretty much automatically done when discharging PW . I'm just reporting the actual money received $1000 is actually $900 cash via paypal and $100 gift card. I had to redeem watts to get the cash. If you see the redemption screen shot it shows 63,550 watts to exchange for $100 it also shows 90,800 grayed out with a slash through it that's the "undiscounted" exchange rate.

the gift cards they just threw in for the surge bonuses. but you can redeem your watts for gift cards at a bigger discount of 59,630watts for $100 worth of GC ( works out to be a little more than the 5% you can get using amazon cc.)


the baseline of -4.58kWh is an example of doing nothing (not gaming). its when i'm powering the house with battery, and solar is discharging to the grid no discharge of PW to grid: what it was doing before the export button arrived. when an event happens you dump the your pw into the grid up to your max capacity while still powering house. so you get credit for whatever you dump to the grid from the PW, assuming your house consumption and the solar production remains the same bec that's how much you are "reducing" your use/baseline by.


the worse thing to do is to export everything on non event days. then you have no PW ability to "reduce" your use.

 

[astrorob]

the worse thing to do is to export everything on non event days. then you have no PW ability to "reduce" your use.

this was definitely true for me and contributed to a relatively low (calculated/estimated) payout from the recent VPP events.

but without EE, my true-up is going to be ~$1200 vs. ~$200. so it seems like 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other EE vs. demand reduction programs. while getting a check would be nice i'd rather make sure my true-up is sane. at least i don't have to rely on a 3rd party to get that money.