If any NH politics folks are looking for good ideas for how to save folks $$ on their energy bills, increase reliability, decrease system costs, look no further than what @[email protected] is up to.
I was just scrolling through the interim report on their battery pilot.
@[email protected] This is Phase 1 of a pilot that has been going on for 2 years.
You pay $25 a month, get a backup battery installed in your house, get put on a Time of Use Rate... https://new-hampshire.libertyutilities.com/acworth/liberty-utilities-home-battery-storage-pilot-approved-.html
@[email protected] ...and the battery gets to work arbitraging between on/off peak rates, and reducing monthly system peaks.
Participants saved about $720 a year, AND got backup power
@[email protected] Why do customers get these savings? Because by putting these backup batteries to work for the grid, they're saving their utilities money at the same time.
The batteries are called on to reduce monthly peak demand, which in turn reduce how much the utilities pay in network fees
@[email protected] Your local utility pays the regional grid for its use of the High Voltage Transmission Network, and those charges are assessed base on their peak demand.
This program passes along some of the savings to folks who sign up for a battery.
@[email protected] In the end, the costs and benefits of the program are essentially a wash.
In other words it doesn't raise electric rates a dime. (And did I mention that folks save $720 a year by participating?)
@[email protected] Dear NH Policy Makers,
THERE IS SO MUCH WE COULD BE DOING to save people money on energy, reduce system costs, prepare for a the distributed energy future.
Let's Get To It.
@[email protected] The next phase of this pilot would be to scale it up from 100 batteries to 500, and to let 3rd party providers take part by creating a 500 battery Bring Your Own Device program.
That's 1,000 batteries. A start.
...but we've got 1.4 million Granite Staters.
Sam Evans-Brown