36 | February 2021
works best in tighter and more efficient
homes.
Better grid
Batteries at home level for backup
and grid services—they can blunt high
prices on the grid, replace a gener-
ator for shor ter outages, and move
electricity from when it's plentiful
when its sunny or the wind is blow-
ing to dark and windless times.
Generation closer to where it's used.
This allows par ts of the grid to be "is-
landed," aka microgrids. Community solar
with batteries is a great example—put
it on commercial roofs, over parking, or
on unused land. Let a neighborhood run
separate from the grid in outages, not
unlike hospitals. Or more rooftop solar
on homes.
Better rate design or other programs
that incentivizes batteries or neighbor-
hood level generation.
Real time time-of-use programs
like Agile Octopus in the UK or Evolve
Energy in Texas that help move demand
to hours of the day with less expensive
power.
Vermont's Green Mountain Power in-
stalls two Powerwalls for $55/month but
gets to use par t of their capacity during
times the grid is stressed.
There's a problem with that list
though: economics. At present, the value
is there, but it's locked up where the
market can't see it. Here are two ways
to fix that:
Home Value
Energy use is not transparent at re-
sale, so there isn't an easy way to
understand if a house is an energy pig
or a miser. Say a house costs $100/
month less than its comps to operate,
shouldn't it be wor th some por tion
of that $100/month extra? That easi-
ly translates to between $5k-$25K.
Until that changes, our American
tendency to move often prevents most
from upgrading their homes because
they a) don't see the value and b) won't
get extra when they sell. The first is a
sales and marketing problem, the second
is a real estate market problem.
Access to Wholesale Markets
Right now, consumers can't par tici-
pate in wholesale markets. Electricity
costs vary wildly (Texas is currently
pegged at $9/kwh when $0.5-$0.10
is normal, and at night can even be
free), so there is a lot of value in be-
ing able to limit those price spikes.
House Whisperer
Continued from previous page
