Free Electricity

[peakbagger]

A snap shot of wholesale power prices in New England on Sunday. Generally what causes this is that there isn't a lot of demand, baseload power plants (like nukes) are running as they don't turn down well and wind and solar are pumping into the grid. There are times when the rates will go negative.

Here is snap shot from today

 

[vinny11950]

Sweet, Peakbagger. So any electricity used at that time is free? Maybe a transmission cost.

Also, how do you get those maps? I would like something similar for LI NY.

 

[begreen]

Is this a fairly common occurrence or an anomaly? If common and the window of opportunity is a few hours, then it would possibly be a great time to charge the Tesla or heat up a batch of water for hot water storage.

 

[iamlucky13]

I assume those are spot market wholesale rates, not residential rates. The utilities bid on the electricity on the regional market throughout the day based on their needs compared to their long term contracts. If necessary, they grant larger customers lower prices at these low cost times to encourage consumption of the excess.

Residential level demand-scheduling has barely begun to be tinkered with. Time-of-use billing is only a very rudimentary form.

Perhaps in the next 10 years, we'll start to see utilities making plans available based on real-time published rates. Smart appliances would query rates over the internet and schedule operations based on whether the user has selected settings to prioritize convenience or savings.

 

[georgepds]

I assume those are spot market wholesale rates, not residential rates. .....

In Texas.. the rates sometimes go negative for wind power

http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...nd_power_was_so_plentiful_one_night_that.html


They can still make money because of gov subsidies for production

 

[peakbagger]

Source for chart and lots of other interesting charts and power info

http://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/

Just in case LMP http://www.iso-ne.com/participate/support/faq/lmp

These are wholesale rates. There is a cost for transmission and distribution that has to be paid to get it to the customer.

This is happening frequently in Texas and starting to happen more often in New England. Wind and renewables get a production tax credit of $23 per MW. The winds farms are built and owe money for loans so they can afford to pay to get rid of power and still be better off than shutting down. There are some plants like nukes that run full bore all the time as it takes too long to speed up and slow down so they cant shutdown on a weekend and be ready to catch a rise in prices when the demand cranks up on Monday. So have a nice sunny cold day with plenty of wind and low power demand and there can be more generation than demand so the wholesale power price will drift down and if there is still too much generation, it can go negative, at some point the having to pay to get rid of power drives enough plant down that the power demand matched the supply.