I just received the request via email. Seems like some sensible steps we should all take to conserve power for everyone.
Text of the email:
Are you able to take some simple steps to reduce or shift your energy use?
With excessive temperatures and wildfire conditions affecting power generation across the region, EWEB is encouraging customers to voluntarily conserve energy through Wednesday, especially between 4-9 p.m.
As people shelter indoors from wildfire smoke and use their air conditioners to stay cool, the regional power grid is strained and market prices for electricity are extraordinarily high.
EWEB typically buys power at around $30-50 per megawatt hour. But the utility is seeing prices of $1,000-$1,700 per megawatt hour at peak times.
Several regional generators in the northwest have been shut down due to wildfire conditions, including EWEB’s Carmen-Smith hydroelectric facility on the McKenzie River, which has been impacted by the Lookout Fire.
Normally, EWEB can rely on the Carmen-Smith generator to meet peaks in local energy demand, limiting the utility’s need to buy expensive power on the market. But with Carmen-Smith shut down, EWEB is forced to turn to the market, where supply and demand conditions are driving prices up.
At this time, EWEB is not forecasting emergency power shutoffs or “rolling blackouts” but reliability could be impacted if other major generating units are forced offline.
“We are not panicked, and we don’t want our customers to panic,” says EWEB’s chief energy resource officer Brian Booth. “But if customers can take some simple steps to reduce or shift their electricity usage, it can reduce costs and relieve some of the strain on the grid during these extreme conditions.”
We are asking customers to be mindful about how you use electricity, especially from 4 – 9 p.m. through Wednesday, Aug. 16.
Here are some ways you can conserve energy:
- Set your air conditioner to 74 degrees or higher.
- Avoid charging electric vehicles.
- Use small countertop appliances instead of the stove or oven.
- Delay running the dryer or dishwasher.
- Turn off any unnecessary lights and electronics.
By using energy wisely and looking for opportunities to conserve, you can reduce the impact on the regional grid. Reducing energy usage during high temperatures also relieves strain on local utility infrastructure, allowing critical equipment to cool faster overnight and helping improve overall reliability.
That range between $30 and $1700 USD is insane.
It would be nice if the consumer could opt to pay a variable rate for electricity so that people can schedule their usage to decrease costs.
This behavior would also make it cheaper for eweb to provide electricity
Would this be different in anyway from what some(?) providers in Texas do? Seems like a really good way to screw people over, imo.
Just thinking aloud here, recalling some horror stories about people getting hit by crazy bills in recent winters (especially relevant given local pushes to ban natural gas in new homes).
Yeah, I guess it's important that the people know when their electricity will be super expensive.
Also, you can charge people (or discount people) something like the square root of the difference between the current rate and the average rate so that the rates never get too extreme.
In general, I think it's good to reward people who time their electricity use in a prosocial way.
Perhaps a better alternative is to give the power company the ability to turn up and down peoples thermostat a few degrees, or the ability to start and stop car charging.
Yeah, I could get behind that. If someone wants to sweat out the hot days of summer to reduce the collective demand for resources, I'd be all for giving them some sort of "bonus" or reward. But, e.g., no one should be asked to lower the thermostat during peak hours in winter (or have to pay $17k in extraordinary cases, like we've seen happen in Texas recently).
Going back to the idea of variable rates, I think it could work if there are contractual maximum rates, with notation on bills indicating what a bill would be like if their current period's usage came out at that maximum rate (e.g. someone is charged $100 one month, with a mix of peak and trough times, then the bill should also mention that amount of usage would've cost $500 had it been entirely at the peak rate, or whatever the actual number would be). This, along with some way of constantly letting people know what their current rate and consumption are (smart meters could possibly help here, idk).
I'd still avoid the variable rate, personally.
This idea kind of horrifies me. I don't want any company having any sort of control over my home like that. There are always unusual circumstances, and no one should have to file a form to request permission to set the thermostat a bit higher or charge their car (just to extrapolate what may happen if power companies could control certain endpoint uses like you suggested).