Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Assuming you also get closer to wind generation prices not just overall wholesale prices, it would be really popular.

People would install a battery at home the way most of the world installs solar and they’d see massive reductions in electricity bills more than paying for the battery. The UK is absolutely terrible location for solar, and it’s still installed because UK’s electricity prices are so high.

That said, wind going to absolutely zero nationwide is extremely unlikely but the more people who signed up for such a system eventually just a little power wouldn’t be enough for all of them. So there’s be an economic feedback loop.

View on HN

There is no reason for anyone with a wind park to sell cheap if there are customers willing to pay a high price.

That said with a battery and dynamic prices, there are many days where you can charge a battery when the prices are low and use them battery when the prices are high.

Constant pricing means they make more when wholesale prices tank and less when whole prices rise. I’ll sell you X% of my output for Y$/kWh is a perfectly valid strategy and batteries can absorb output spikes just as they absorb blackouts.

Hedges like this are a useful risk mitigation strategy as going bankrupt is a much larger downside than making slightly more money.

This fine. But from the fact that prices are sometimes high, we can conclude that overlll there is a shortage of windpower. Which will factor into the prices. The owner of the windpark can take the prices for each hour, and compute weighted average with production. And set that as the constant price.

So the consumer does not gain anything.

Curtailment means there’s a different between what wind farms can produce and what the grid is willing to buy.

Wholesale prices are really just one aspect of grid manufacturing and paying them doesn’t mean you’re getting the equivalent of a percentage of wind farm productivity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com