Reduced load is reduced funding which leads to poor people dying in heat wave.

Funding goes to shareholders, not infrastructure, which is neglected to juice profits. Micro grids ensures funds stay local, and are governed by the users. What would have become profits is now infrastructure and user savings.

Edit: Poor people already die because they can’t afford their utility bills. Micro grids will help more than convincing utilities to be benevolent and reduce utility bills.

(Have advocated for low income solar and installed more than one rooftop solar system on the roof of those not of means; their electric rates are locked in for decades, as the systems have a 25 year warranty and will continue to produce after that, while utility fuel prices will continue to rise as will their demand to see a return on equity; AMA)

Most electric utilities have programs designed to reduce load because they don't want to expand capacity. Programs like replacing your inefficient old fridge, or incandescent to LED bulbs and such.

This is going to be especially true as EV adoption takes off. It could be hard to keep up with increases in demand.

> Most electric utilities have programs designed to reduce load because they don't want to expand capacity. Programs like replacing your inefficient old fridge, or incandescent to LED bulbs and such.

I don't think there's anything wrong with going for the cheaper option first (reducing demand via consumer incentives), before building more infrastructure when it's truly needed.

Re: EV adoption - I think smart charging will play a large role. E.g. if you come home from work at 1800, do you need to start charging immediately if you're going to leave the house at 0830 the next day? Spreading out EV charging demand over the evening and early morning could reduce the need to add more capacity.

The reasonable option is probably to trickle charge in case you need to go to the store, then ramp up after peak hours.

From a public policy standpoint that matters more while you’re grid powered, but with batteries peak draw affects overall power availability, so you’d still want to charge the vehicle slowly while the AC is on and cooking is happening. Same class of problem, different scale.

It could also be ideal for many people to charge at work during the day. Fleet vehicles would need to charge at night. Plus, if we're using renewable, that's less energy storage needed for the solar generated during the day.

> Most electric utilities have programs designed to reduce load because they don't want to expand capacity.

It's not just that. For society at large, the less electricity is consumed the better for the environment - all power generation comes at a serious cost: nuclear may be the most efficient but raises the question of security (especially in earthquake-prone areas or potential hurricane/flood zones), environmental contamination caused by mining, waste storage and nuclear weapon material proliferation; solar takes up a lot of space and requires energy-intensive and polluting production steps; windmills are a danger to flight; all fossil fuels are bad due to CO2 and the impact of however they are mined; running water is bad for fish migration; dam water consumes large amounts of land and is a perfect target to hit in a war (as the Russians showed in Ukraine a few weeks ago); geothermal carries a risk of earthquakes.

TBH, I think EV adoption is mostly a benefit. As consumer appliances go, it is the closest thing to truly addressable demand in common use.

Leveling out gw usage is more important than decreasing total gwh used.

You’re talking about how it starts. I’m talking about how it ends.

That still doesn't make sense to me. There won't be any reduction in load. Load will continue to increase as we electrify more things. Currently, increased load is what is leading to power outages in certain areas.

I'm not sure about that. Home solar will offload unused power to the grid. And the utility will often only give you kWh credits which don't roll over forever. Homeowners are paying for the utility's infrastructure expansion on their own dime and giving them some proportion of free power. The utility goes from being the primary generator of power to being primarily an interconnection system. That means poor people are getting subsidized power from rich people.

Throw in the strong incentive for homeowners to perform power arbitrage and the whole system gets more stable.

It’s a pithy conjecture, but I’m unconvinced.

Technological progress like this is almost always made possible through middle and upper class investment in what start as luxury products. Capitalism drives the innovation cycle which brings scale and efficiency.

This is how complex and innovative products become mainstream and affordable. The opposite of poor people dying in heat waves, solar reduces peak stress on the grid making it more resilient and driving down costs.

You guys only want to talk about externalities after they're already happening to someone. That is not sustainable.