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Results for “retail price signals”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

A Double-Signal Retail Pricing Scheme for Acquiring Operational Flexibility from Batteries

Batteries can provide valuable operational flexibility to facilitate the system efficiency. However, there lacks market environments to effectively harness and monetize the value of these assets. Most existing works apply a profit-oriented single-signal pricing scheme, which mixes the value of energy and flexibility together and may ultimately raise the electricity bill. Therefore, this paper proposes a profit-neutral double-signal retail pricing scheme that distinguishes elastic market players (i.e., batteries) from inelastic market players (i.e., inflexible loads) and quantifies the value of energy and flexibility separately. Experimental results indicate that under the incentive provided by the proposed retail pricing scheme: 1) The system efficiency benefit aligns with benefits to both batteries and inflexible loads; 2) Value of operational flexibility, contributing to improve the energy efficiency, can be transparently priced and fairly allocated among batteries; and 3) The dominant role in which inflexible loads play on determining the market price is avoided.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Customer Rate and Tariff Design

This webinar covers and introduction to customer rates and tariff design, drivers of utility costs, impacts of evolving grids on rate design, retail price signals, and methods for evaluating rates.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Impacts of High Variable Renewable Energy Futures on Electric-Sector Decision Making: Demand-Side Effects

Previous work by the Berkeley Lab describes how high shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) such as wind and solar power could change wholesale electricity price dynamics. These include the timing of when electricity is cheap or expensive, locational differences in the cost of electricity, and the degree of regularity or predictability in those costs. Many decentralized decision-makers on the demand-side may not yet have considered the implications of these possible future changes. In this report, we evaluate the sensitivity of a set of demand-side decisions to different levels of VRE penetration ranging from a low of 5-20% to a high of 40-50%. The analysis builds on hourly wholesale energy and capacity prices in different VRE scenarios for four wholesale markets in the United States for the year 2030 (CAISO, ERCOT, NYISO, and SPP). The principal question for this exploration is whether private and public electric-sector decisions that are made based on assumptions reflecting low VRE levels still achieve their intended objective in a high VRE scenario with 40-50% wind and solar? This scoping report evaluates the impacts of changing patterns of peak system needs on the benefits of demand reductions by examining the altered value of different energy efficiency (EE) measures. Similarly, we investigate new opportunities for large energy consumers that may arise from periods with very low wholesale electricity prices. We calculate the value of new process investments (e.g., hydrogen production and other generalized electro-commodities), showcase the varying value of new product storage investments (such as reservoir extensions at a desalination plant), and estimate the benefits of increased process flexibility that uses electricity as a process-input in addition to traditional fossil fuels (e.g., district energy systems). Finally, many decentralized decision-makers and end-use customers are not directly exposed to wholesale electricity prices but instead receive price signals from their retail electricity rates. As wind and solar shares increase, we compare the economic efficiency of flat retail rates relative to more dynamic time-of-use tariffs with and without critical peak-pricing events.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Increasing Access to Grid-Tied Distributed Photovoltaics for Low-Income Populations: Considerations for Developing Countries

Governments around the world are under immense pressure to promote inclusive economic growth, reduce budget deficits, and promote sustainable development goals. Such goals may potentially be addressed through public policy approaches to encourage the use of distributed photovoltaic (DPV) systems in developing countries, particularly among low-income electricity customers. At the same time, low-income customers face numerous barriers to DPV deployment including a lack of access to capital and financing, a lack of awareness about the technology, lack of homeownership, and distorted price signals via lower retail tariffs. As a result of these factors, among others, they are often the least likely customers in developed and developing countries alike to deploy solar. However, under the right set of conditions, low-income grid tied DPV programs can offer beneficial outcomes for governments, customers, utilities, and the environment. This brief informs decision makers in developing countries as they explore ways to promote equitable access to solar energy in their communities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessing Customer Experience and Business Models around Price-to-Device Communication and Smart Control Pathways in CalFlexHub

California is facing three major challenges in electrical grid operation: renewable overgeneration, steep evening ramping, and growing peak demand. The state has identified dynamic retail price response as a key strategy evidenced by CPUC’s Dynamic Rates proceeding and CEC’s Load Management Standards. Furthermore, the CEC launched a $16M “California Load Flexibility Research and Deployment Hub (CalFlexHub)” administered by Berkeley Lab to accelerate price-response flexible load technologies in buildings and EV charging. There are more than 16 laboratory and field demonstration projects in CalFlexHub, each demonstrating innovative automated price-response technologies. CalFlexHub tests various pathways through which hourly price signals and triggered control commands are communicated to load-flexible devices such as smart thermostats, heat pumps, water heaters, and EVs. We identified seven unique communication and control pathways, which involve combinations of third-party cloud, device OEM’s cloud, building central gateway, and local controller in between the price server and the load-flexible devices. It is important for utilities and policy makers to understand the long-term implications of each pathway in designing future programs and creating related policies and mandates for market transformation. We propose an evaluation framework including the following aspects: ● Functionality: connectivity and uptime, resilience, and optimization; ● Customer experience: simplicity in setup, troubleshooting support, continuity, customer choice, first cost, and ongoing cost; ● Business model and scalability: advance interoperability, holistic solution, bridge unique gap, customer base, and value streams and pricing structures. In this paper, we identify emerging business models associated with each communication pathway and discuss their positive features and challenges from the above aspects.

Liu, Jingjing↗