By Samuel Adeyemo, Co-Founder and COO, Aurora Solar
What do the prices of movie tickets to Hollywood’s latest blockbuster and the cost of electricity have in common?
Utility companies all over the US are making big changes when it comes to their billing methods for residential customers. Similar to a blockbuster movie, where ticket prices change based on the time of day — matinees tend to be cheaper than primetime showings — many utility companies are moving towards billing customers based on energy used at specific times of the day.
By showing the onerous rate spiking amounts for electricity in California allows one to see just how important paying it forward and installing one’s own large solar PV array and actual microgrid can save thousands of dollars over the years and allow one to save money spent on energy costs to go back into the household budget each month to pay for homeowner’s insurance for the year or perhaps auto insurance for the year or perhaps some of the property taxes for the year or just pay for groceries throughout the year.
One might even install the microgrid first and buy into a larger battery pack in the 65kWh range to offset the TOU rate spiking from 3 PM to 9 PM each day and with the proper battery charger one could use the microgrid for A.C. and or D.C. coupling and use the off peak hours to help charge the backup battery with off peak energy at the 10 or 11 PM to 5 AM time period. One keeps (hearing) about V2H interaction that will allow the EV to power the home for a while in an emergency. This type of interaction will change the generation and storage of energy again and push the utility further away from the homeowners daily energy needs. Making a 2,500 square foot home look like a 500 square foot bungalow in electricity use from the grid will not be a sustainable income for the utilities themselves. IF on site battery storage becomes the new normal, the home will become grid agnostic and the utility has another problem trying to be relevant for energy services no longer needed.