Maybe this could be fixed by a rule change. The national electricity objectives state that the system should operate in favour of lower costs.
I would assume that gaming the system to raise costs would run counter to that.
Maybe this could be fixed by a rule change.
I am doubtful. More rules have been added for years and years but the players still find ways of gaming. I suspect the core premises of the system need changing.
Can someone dumb down the article for someone who isn’t an electrical engineer?
Power prices fluctuate. If more power is needed than is supplied, prices will go up until either someone reduces their demand, or someone generates more power.
Some companies are deliberately waiting for extra high prices before they start delivering more power, and now they are doing the same with batteries.
They could be supplying the power much earlier and cheaper with batteries (unlike peaker plants that cost a lot to operate), but they just decided not to.
Batteries are not the problem, it’s the companies who are using them for profit instead of for grid stability.
Renewables gives more opportunities for such companies to to do such things. Instability of grid is main reason. But I fail to see how it is related to batteries? They can do exactly same with just coal.
Power companies already have a playbook based on the 2001 California Electricity Crisis .
PBS Frontline has a good program on it called Blackout.
