this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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I’m not familiar with how power grids work, is an excess of power bad for the grid if it isn’t used?
No. They constantly monitor it and keep it in line. The power grid itself is totally fine. Completely.
The only "problem" is they cannot easily turn on or off huge old power plants, so if the sun is blazing, they might have to direct excess old generation power to batteries or other grids.
The only "problem" is the power companies don't get to charge much for simply managing the grid. They charge mostly for power generation, so it ends up costing them money. If they were simply a government paid service, they wouldn't have to care what so ever which direction power is flowing as long as it has somewhere to go.
The main power company in CA (PG&E) has built tons of other things into the bills aside from power generation, so I expect my bill (which has gone up 300% since 2018) to continue to climb despite this.
my utility charges $25 a month just to be hooked up. then there's taxes and some community bullshit fees on top of the actual electricity usage. so even though my usage has dropped quite a bit over the years, and the base rate hasn't really gone up that much (about 10-12% total, over two decades).. my bill is still more than double what it used to be.