Michael Lee

*spencer

A lot of fuss about the wind PTC distorting the ERCOT power market... but let's remember... the thermal/fossil plants are the power plants who bid the lowest. (hint- they are not as "dispatchable/flexible" as they claim they are). Here is Spence Power Station clearing at -$175

🤔 one way of dealing with privacy regulations...

what’s the cost of having an EV?
🤔🤔

the better question: what’s the cost of NOT having an EV?

https://insideevs.com/news/736038/hurricane-helene-evs-v2l/

Companies in the past 20 yrs: your tech strategy allows you to thrive

Companies for the next 20 yrs: your energy strategy allows you to thrive

Incredible to see the massive carbon emissions... we have important work to do!

https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-video-carbon-dioxide-co2-emissions-1929622

Further, it makes intuitive sense buried lines would be more protected against wind… but would they be more susceptible to flood risk?

Lots of calls for Centerpoint to bury lines… but does anyone have any data if this makes sense? Anecdotally, I think places such as Sugar Land and River Oaks have buried lines but they both had significant outages during Beryl.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/uks-octopus-energy-plans-to-ramp-up-texas-presence-with-new-investment

High energy rates are the biggest barrier to the energy transition. Novel products like our Intelligent Octopus, directly link the energy transition to lower energy rates, which is good for everyone! ...

decarbonization!)
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/uks-octopus-energy-plans-to-ramp-up-texas-presence-with-new-investment

We're at the forefront of experimenting how to get flex loads at scale in Texas... but focusing on customers and DERs/tech, we can achieve much lower customer costs AND a more reliable grid. (and by the way, deep...

Much of downtown #houston weathered the storm fine. some parts had extensive damage from trees and skyscraper windows.

we need an energy transition away from this toxic air

🤔 I think we've hit a new milestone when an ISO's supply / demand curve makes the local news coverage...

with this upcoming high risk storm and today’s abundance of energy, we need more flexible energy usage!

“It’s not that we’re taking an existing
electricity system and energizing it from a different source. We’re building a new system!”

🎉🎉

https://www.wsj.com/articles/octopus-energy-has-texas-size-ambitions-6f11cfb8?st=o3bqwdt4rtcxbvp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

😲 -$2,311 LMP price!

we talk a lot about “dispatchable” in Texas energy. another word that is similar is “flexible”.

it’s quite clear that even at $0 coal shouldn’t be producing power- it can’t recover the fuel costs (renewables have now fuel)

but coal plants are not flexible. they cannot easily

it’s very clear… renewables create near $0 electrons. if we want to bring down costs, then we need more renewables! the hours with the most renewables are the cheapest!

💨☀️❤️
The texas grid is currently 60% renewable energy!

50% renewables in Texas! ☀️💨❤️

Renewables are how we keep costs down!

⚡️and @OhioState what a great combination!

https://www.wsj.com/science/nobel-physics-prize-awarded-to-trio-for-work-on-light-and-electrons-44aedc76?st=v0aqhmtbsxksgns&reflink=article_copyURL_share

at the Texas state fair with @OctoEnergyUS !

when we re-think how consumers interact with their energy company, we can build a new paradigm

this residential customer has ~$1,000 credit because they exported when the grid needed it the most

🎉

https://reddit.com/r/Powerwall/s/1WtWwIyTkG

The PCM has been sold to us as "the fix for the grid"... just like any other gov program that distorts the mkt it probably has a bunch of unintended consequences... and those unintended consequences are likely *higher* prices for customers with *less* grid reliability

This creates artificially higher prices for those days before the tightness... and by definition more artificial uncertainty and thus unknown reliability for those days

So that incentivizes them to "economically withold" meaning bid a very high price to generate power on the days leading up to the forecasted tight day

Last Saturday and Sunday, we had semi-tight grid situation... and it would be very reasonable for a generator to look at the forecast and say "I really want to reserve my power plant for Wednesday when we all think it will be tight...

Fossil fuel "aka thermal" power plants have a lot of moving parts! they are quite complex machines! by the time we get to August, they've probably been running hard all summer... many could v much be on the edge of "breaking down" and needing hard maintenance