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But most electricians don't have agreements with the power company to allow them to connect their devices to feed power into the lines. Most solar companies do.

Huh? In San Diego (and I think all of CA is this way), once the hardware is installed, you call the power company to come out and do a free inspection before connecting to the grid: And thats it. I have never heard of special agreements and as far as I know companies like solar city still rely on the power company to inspect their work before they can connect it to the grid..
http://www.sdge.com/clean-ener...

Now if you want total grid independence that shouldn't matter to you. So in that case what matters is that Solar City supplies long term financing that most electricians won't give you. If you don't want it, fine. Some people do.

In the end, Solar city was unwilling to give me a quote for an installation without running my credit, and the sales guy that came to our house said they don't do off grid. They also don't really finance you, they put a lein against your house for the length of the contract to buy power from them. It's more like signing up for a cell phone contract where you get locked into buying from them instead of the power company for a set period of time and the hardware is just an afterthought.

A bank can help you finance a solar installation. Just like how an electrician can wire up a solar array. I maintain that companies like SolarCity are just middlemen muddying up the waters and are not necessary.

Solar's production curve does not match the peak user curve of electrical power.

I beg to differ. For hot, sunny climates, judging from the power companys' behavior, solar looks like an ideal match for electricity demand.

Here's a program from each of the big 3 down here.

San DIego Gas and Electric has Reduce Your Use days, which they enact when they fear the grid is under strain. On those days they will refund you back 4 times the cost of a Kw/H if you reduce vs the day before between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Pacific Gas and Electic offers Peak Demand Pricing which adds a surcharge to your regular time-of-use rate during the peak period from 2-6 p.m.

Southern California Edison has Critical Peak Pricing CPP. Events will only be activated during SCE’s summer season between noon and 6:00 p.m.

It's genius in that it allows load levelling without much investment by the power company, it's silly because the investment will just be moved to the user

Users will only allow this if they are compensated appropriately.

Adding one charge cycle per day means that battery life is halved.

Typical use case won't involve anywhere close to a full cycle. Today, typical use of an EV involves a partial cycle - probably 1/3rd to 1/2 cycle. 2 half cycles is easier on a pack than one full cycle - you can probably get 2-3x more "full" cycles by only half-cycling a modern battery pack. Limit depth of charge/discharge even more and you'll get even more use out of the pack.

That said - the real value won't come from performance large charge/discharges. It will come from many small charge/discharge events to provide grid regulation services. If a big load pops on, draw a bit of juice from batteries while conventional generators spin up. When it turns off use the excess juice to charge batteries.

Conventional generators are not good at spinning up and down quickly to match changes in load - by buffering this load and allowing the big generator to run closer to constant load you can significantly improve it's operating efficiency. Very frequently this inability to quickly match changes in load is what causes black outs (the recent San Diego blackout is a good example).

Worst case you're looking at a really hot or really cold day and you want to be able to draw 5 kW from storage during peak. This can go a long ways. I know that some utilities will pay ~$50/year just to have the option of being able to remotely control your air conditioner to keep it on a 50% duty cycle for one hour - they'll pay up to $200/year to have the option of being able to keep it off for a whole hour - and they may never need to use it!

So imagine being paid to simply leave your car plugged in to the grid just so the utility has the option of drawing power from it - and then being paid more if they actually use it. Having these resources available at little cost can be worth their weight in gold when they are needed.

Check with your power company, especially if you are with a smaller co-op. I write software that does the analysis and historical reporting on modern (aka, "smart", the kind that can phone home with readings on usage, peaks, etc, and all over the powerline itself) meters, and we have all that data like you're describing. More complex systems allow for complete home monitoring, but they do require some specialized devices inside the house.

Here's a link (ok, the first on google I came across on the terms you need) but still, this will get your foot in the door. HTH. http://www.sdge.com/smartmeter/homeAreaNetwork.shtml

If you're in with a bigger firm, sorry charlie, not much to suggest there.

In a perfect world, you're right. However, you have losses in the substations and the various transformers along the way. You also have the fact that electricity is not an on-demand power production system, so it has to always run with significant headspace to current usage. That headspace is wasted energy. The ICE, on the other hand, leaves its unneeded fuel in the tank.

Every technical article I've read has shown that the electric car (not the hybrid, but plug-ins) is, in terms of its usage of the total available chemical energy in the fuel burned, for an equivalent vehicle in terms of passenger capacity, cargo space, range and general performance, less efficient than the ICE. I may be wrong, and I don't have the cites handy (if I remember correctly, it was in IEEE Spectrum a few years back). It's also possible that I am operating on old data.

There are also many things that a plug-in electric is just plain bad at. Any off-road or heavy haulage for one. Bio-Diesel doesn't have that problem.

Bio-Diesel is also completely compatible with all the current transportation infrastructure we have (fuel distribution and gas stations). Plug-in electric requires a massive, entirely new, infrastructure.

One thing I am sure of, at least where I live, the power generation and grid can't keep up with current use, and the same crowd that are big advocates of electric cars, are actively opposing the only project likely to fix that.

The response to my post has been fascinating. It's clear to me that this isn't about science, economics, or even fashion. This is a politico-religious movement bordering on a cult.

For the record: I think that we need to abandon petroleum for personal transportation. I believe that as a matter of national security, and, ultimately, justice in the world. The Petroleum economy supports despotism around the world, and arms those who seek to destroy our way of life. However, I'm not a fanatic would shout down or sneer at those who believe differently. I even like hybrids. I just think that the bio-diesel hybrid is the answer, not the plug-in electric.

You can buy Diesels that work fine on bio-diesel today. They can also run on regular diesel when bio-diesel is not available.

Why would everyone want to give the power generation companies even more control over their lives? Doesn't anyone remember the battles Surfrider fought against PG&E and Edison?

It may be easier to make clean power centrally, but it is also easier for those large utilities to bribe (sorry, give contributions to) politicians. They have no reason to shift to alternative fuels. If anything, they could use our greater dependence on them to justify more strip mines, and lobby for lower safety and environmental standards in the coal mining industry, more damming of rivers, and huge ocean wave, tide, and wind power projects.

If you have adequate local (meaning at your home) generation capacity, then maybe a plug-in is the answer. However, there's still that really nasty battery to deal with.

YMMV, but I'm more of a fan of biofuels than electric.

>Before anyone gets any ideas, please not that this is no longer possible in California due to Air Quality regulations.

I don't know when that law came into effect, but I do know this site (that I mentioned in another message) mentions a list of Californian conversion centers.

While they do make propane conversions (I think) I know they have natural gas conversions as well.

Contrary to what those in other sections of the world may think (what? you don't keep up with everything that happens in California? why not?), this is not exactly a new topic.

It comes down to, essentially, a truly awful economic decision and a great deal of FUD spread by (who else?) the power companies and the media.

Deregulation started in 1995, when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco started studying the possibility. Other states (most notably New Jersey/Delaware/Pennsylvania/Maryland, which forms one power region) had managed to successfully deregulate power, so California figured it was a Good Thing (TM).

The bad economics come in when you realize that it was only the wholesale market that was deregulated, but that Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) were under a CPUC-imposed rate freeze, which meant they could not raise their rates.

Added to this was a requirement that Edison, at least (I'm not sure about PG&E), was forced to divest itself of its power plants. These power plants were bought up by companies that were essentially startups. The new generators of electricity raised the price of electricity, and SCE and PG&E were stuck.

It amounts to a larger version of the rent control in my hometown of Santa Monica - costs may rise but the end-users pay a fixed rate set by the government.

An interesting side note for those who care to research further - San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) was under no such rate freeze, and prices, predictably, tripled this summer. SDG&E, you notice, is not facing bankruptcy, because they are free to raise their rates.

As for the environmental "cartel" whining about nuclear power, it was my last knowledge that both Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant north of San Luis Obispo and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS, aka "the iron tits" due to their unfortunate shape) were both running (with some exceptions due to kelp in the intake at DCNPP).

The cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside, and San Bernadino (among others) are NOT affected, no matter what FUD you may see in the national media, because they have municipal utilities which have long-term contracts and were never regulated (the CPUC has no authority over municipal utilities).

You can check the status of the grid at the California Independent System Operator's website, but it may be down (slashdotted without ever being posted on slashdot, imagine!) We have had no rotating outages yet. Let's hope the broken system gets fixed soon.

During the evening hours yesterday, residential was their single largest chunk, accounting for nearly half of their total load.