Consumers Have the Power
Last week OneRoof Energy participated in Greentech Media’s California Distributed Energy Future conference in San Francisco. At any conference about distributed energy resources (DERs), you will likely hear about solar, batteries, electric vehicles, smart inverters, and a range of other technologies. Each of these technologies will no doubt play a role in the future of the electrical grid and power generation, but they all require a common ingredient to generate value: consumers. The key to an efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost effective energy industry is consumer participation.
Specifically, consumers can help craft California’s distributed energy future by embracing new technologies, consuming energy effectively, and voicing their opinions. Of course, the government, private companies, and other intermediaries must also create an environment that supports the consumer. At the conference, participants discussed an example of how consumers can utilize load shifting and time of use (TOU) rates to contribute to a greener, more efficient electricity system in a cost effective way.
As per a recent decision by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), TOU rates will become standard for all new PG&E and SCE solar customers as soon as new metering rules go into effect (see CPUC’s Decision on Net Metering a Win for California Homeowners for more information), and SDG&E customers will switch to TOU rates in 2019. Although utility customers will have the option to opt-out of this new pricing structure, they can potentially save a lot of money by taking advantage of TOU pricing. Load shifting—adjusting the time at which one consumes electricity—provides a great opportunity for consumers to do this. Instead of doing a load of laundry when you get home from work in the evening, how about putting the laundry machine on a timer, so the machine runs midday? During the middle of the day, demand for electricity is generally lower, and prices drop to reflect that low demand. Plus if you have a solar system, you are producing extra electricity at that time that could power your laundry machine.
Of course private companies, utilities, and the government have to explain these opportunities clearly and offer the technologies to make it happen. The role of the CPUC is to listen to the public and use that feedback to ensure “that consumers have safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates…and [promote] the health of California’s economy.” Utilities need to find ways to communicate any upcoming changes to their customers and maintain a robust electrical grid. Innovative companies are coming up with new and improved technologies every day to make the energy transformation possible. Everyone has a role to play, but at the end of the day consumer participation will be critical to shaping California’s distributed energy future.
See GTM’s own summery of the conference at http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Slide-Show-GTM-Research-on-Californias-Distributed-Energy-Future.
