Energy: new solutions and ... pricing

Energy: new solutions and ... pricing

Renewable energy in the form of distributed generation is gaining momentum and bringing new challenges to the model of valuing and charging electricity supplied via the public grid.

The tradition is to charge primarily based on energy consumption in kWh.

For low voltage consumers it is 100% kWh. For medium and high voltage ones, there is also the charge of a portion of demand, which generally represents something between 20% or 30% of the total bill.

With the public grid being the backup of renewable energy, which are intrinsically intermittent, the greatest value is in the capacity made available by the local utility.

My proposal is to develop a model based on kW of demand. The client contracts a capacity and thus has the associated energy secured on a month-to-month basis.

And, to optimize the model, the customer could trade differences (contracted x recorded) on a demand exchange that would be sponsored by the local utility company.