logoalt Hacker News

01HNNWZ0MV43FFtoday at 2:58 PM2 repliesview on HN

Not GP but I assume the fixed prices have to be fairly high to account for people using lots of power during peak demand when most people use lots of power?


Replies

djhworldtoday at 3:13 PM

Exactly.

For me I'm happy to avoid big power draws during the peak times, as I'm 'compensated' for it outside of those periods with a little planning. Downside is when the wind is not blowing AND disruptions to global energy markets - I'm exposed to that, warts and all, there's definitely been an increase in prices over the past 4 weeks, although there has been a few days (including today) where the wind has basically made the energy free and my average unit rate is dropping again.

Kaliboytoday at 3:43 PM

It's not only that, you also need reserve for the intermittent sources like wind and solar.

I live on an island, we have big batteries that can supply up to 15 MW of power for a period. In the Netherlands we have natural gas plants that are called up when the wind or sun output decreases, lest the grid frequency drop.