The truth about Electrify America's progress and Traveling with the Mach E

[dbsb3233]

I think the better option would be to just create a different tariff for commercial charging stations that goes of kWh as opposed to Demand kW. Obviously the kWh rate would be a lot higher than for residential, but at least they wouldn’t be getting killed on the demand. The Demand kW model just doesn’t fit charging stations - they can’t realistically distribute their power without even more costly infrastructure investment.

Honestly, the demand charge model doesn't fit for ANY customers. There's little logic to it. I think many power companies use that simply because they can implement it without having to spend a bundle installing new equipment.

The more fair way to charge more for expensive peak power usage is TOD pricing. For everyone (chargers included).

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[phidauex]

I think traditional demand tariffs are based on the idea of a very large fossil fuel generator, which sells its services in the form of a monthly capacity payment and a variable fuel cost related to volumetric energy. If you apply that same logic to a very large consumer, like an industrial facility that has a high load factor (they are using some energy all the time), then charging based on the portion of the monthly demand charge you are causing, and the portion of the variable fuel charge you are causing makes some sense, and that is how you get a demand tariff.

It makes sense because the generation pattern and the usage pattern are similar, and you have one major supplier of energy in the area (as used to be the default, but is becoming increasingly rare).

But if you move away from single large fossil fuel generators to large mixes of renewable and thermal generators in a variable pricing market, then the demand tariff makes less and less sense. Then you start applying it to users who's pattern differs from generation, and the whole concept falls apart.

I suspect we will start to see some mix of time of use energy tariffs (kWh) as have become popular in many places, and also some time of demand tariffs. In MA we are seeing this on the generation side with programs like Clean Peak Credits which are a time-valued renewable energy credit that rapidly increase in value as they get closer to the monthly peak. If you generate a MWh during the peak usage hour for the grid during a given month, it has 25X its base value. We may start seeing similar programs that time-value your peak demand on the consumption side (though regulators will surely prevent them from having 25X multipliers).

 

[dbsb3233]

Then you start applying it to users who's pattern differs from generation, and the whole concept falls apart.

That was my point as well. While peak usage patterns for most customers (large or small) often overlaps with peak demand periods for the power company, they don't always.

Suppose you have an industrial customer that for whatever reason, decides to schedule their highest power operations overnight. Their demand charge will be based on usage at like 3am, right where the power company is at minimum (and cheapest) power generation. That's a complete disconnect, and creates a disincentive to do the best thing.

The point of demand charges is supposed to be to disincentivize customer usage during the period where it costs most to generate a peak volume of electricity. As such, pricing should be based on power company's peak cost times, not the customer's peak usage times.

 

[Maquis]

That was my point as well. While peak usage patterns for most customers (large or small) often overlaps with peak demand periods for the power company, they don't always.

Suppose you have an industrial customer that for whatever reason, decides to schedule their highest power operations overnight. Their demand charge will be based on usage at like 3am, right where the power company is at minimum (and cheapest) power generation. That's a complete disconnect, and creates a disincentive to do the best thing.

The point of demand charges is supposed to be to disincentivize customer usage during the period where it costs most to generate a peak volume of electricity. As such, pricing should be based on power company's peak cost times, not the customer's peak usage times.

When I was a plant engineer and responsible for managing demand costs, the peak demand that determined our demand charge was different for what the utility called "on-peak" vs "off-peak" hours. The demand charge was calculated from the maximum of on-peak peak demand or some percentage of off-peak peak demand. I seem to recall that the off-peak factor was 60%.

So an off-peak demand of 2000KW was equivalent to 1200KW on-peak.

Our demand charge for the entire year was based on the highest peak demand which occurred between May and September.

 

[Mirak]

That was my point as well. While peak usage patterns for most customers (large or small) often overlaps with peak demand periods for the power company, they don't always.

Suppose you have an industrial customer that for whatever reason, decides to schedule their highest power operations overnight. Their demand charge will be based on usage at like 3am, right where the power company is at minimum (and cheapest) power generation. That's a complete disconnect, and creates a disincentive to do the best thing.

The point of demand charges is supposed to be to disincentivize customer usage during the period where it costs most to generate a peak volume of electricity. As such, pricing should be based on power company's peak cost times, not the customer's peak usage times.

At least in Kansas, that is how it works. Demand kW is only measured during a certain window. As you say, the whole point is to encourage heavy users to spread out their consumption to reduce load.

 

[silverelan]

This YouTuber was *not* happy with Electrify America or the FordPass.

 

[Mirak]

May 18: 600 live stations, 132 coming soon

You’re in great shape if you live in Southern/Central California, Portland, Seattle, Vegas, Phoenix, Houston, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, or the Northeast. All but a handful of the stations “coming soon” are being packed into these already packed areas.

For everybody else, not a lot to look forward to from EA for the foreseeable future. EA is trying to make money - not necessarily build out road trip infrastructure.

 

[Mirak]

“Easy” is relative. Unless you happen to be in a few regions where DCFC abounds, the charging infrastructure is so thin that most EV trips require much more careful planning than with an ICE, and you also may not be able to take the most direct route.

It would be nice if EA gave the rest of the country a bit more love outside a dozen select metro areas + CA. That’s not in the current plans, at least so far as they’ve made public. But I understand that they’ve got to try to make some money.

 

[smp]

May 18: 600 live stations, 132 coming soon

You’re in great shape if you live in Southern/Central California, Portland, Seattle, Vegas, Phoenix, Houston, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, or the Northeast. All but a handful of the stations “coming soon” are being packed into these already packed areas.

For everybody else, not a lot to look forward to from EA for the foreseeable future. EA is trying to make money - not necessarily build out road trip infrastructure.

You're gonna have to back off there on the Northeast. There are only one or maybe two actually existent EA charging stations in NH and none at all in VT. I haven't checked ME yet, but I'm betting on none there also.

Yes we have a couple of "coming soon" listings here in NH, but it remains to be seen about how soon is soon.

smp

 

[dbsb3233]

EA is trying to make money - not necessarily build out road trip infrastructure.

Well, yes and no. Clearly they've been building out road trip infrastructure. Just one look at the map shows that.

But, yes, they're also focusing on some in-city charging as well. I agree with wishing they wouldn't, and just put all their resources into between-city road trip chargers for now. But they're doing both. They've announced 4 new states by the end of the year that they're not currently in.

 

[theo1000]

Not to mention that map is more oriented to east to west travel than north to south. I understand the geography works that way but it weakens the claims substantially.

 

[dbsb3233]

Not to mention that map is more oriented to east to west travel than north to south. I understand the geography works that way but it weakens the claims substantially.

What claim? I was addressing the "not necessarily build out road trip infrastructure" claim. Which to the contrary, they clearly have been. Doesn't mean they're done yet, of course, nor do they claim they're done. But they've certainly been addressing it, with significant progress in the last few years (as the map illustrates).

But still a long way to go too. Gonna take many years.

 

[Regularmache]

As of December 2020, cumulative sales in the United States totaled 1.74 million plug-in cars, with California listed as the largest U.S. plug-in regional market with over 800,000 plug-in cars sold, 46% of national sales.

As of December 2020, Internal combustion engines comprise more than 250 million "Road and highway transportation vehicles in the United States.

The term "Early Adopters" gets bantered around quite often, but sometimes we forget just how small a school of fish, or in our case, small team of horses we really are.

The more people hop on board, we'll see more and more recharge stations.

We just did our part again!

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