Octopus energy in the UK with the beta agile tariff is based on 30 minute pricing and prices have been so low at times such as yesterday that the price per unit has been negative, for example on Sunday and Monday I was paid 4.2 pence per unit to take electricity off the network.

Their web site advertises support for IFTTT. Has anyone here hacked on Octopus APIs? Looks very cool.

Yeah I have a bit. I'm on their Agile energy with half hour pricing intervals (this is what the smart meter standards give).

It's really cool. Sometimes the price goes below zero - "plunge pricing" - if there is too much production and too little use. They give you the pricing info for today and tomorrow ahead of time, not sure how they predict future pricing - probably based on weather forecasts, since they only use solar and wind?

I have WiFi smart sockets on things like electric heaters to turn them on when electricity price is below my threshold level. It's a nice feeling being paid for using electricity. If you have an electric car you could also programmatically only charge it when electricity price is below a certain level. Octopus also have an EV leasing company, thinking of selling my current car and leasing one from them after covid19 is gone to a degree that I still need a car again.

Here are their dev docs:

https://developer.octopus.energy/docs/api/

They even have an open graphQL API and a storybook - how many utility companies you know who do this? Looks like Octopus hired the right people!

https://api.octopus.energy/v1/graphql/

https://octopus.energy/static/common/storybook/account-manag...

Providers are starting to pop up in Australia that support this, and people have been quick to start hacking: https://twitter.com/_______kim/status/1226606021558194176

Griddy in Texas is a wholesale energy provider for consumers that passes on the fees set by the Texas grid regulatory agency every 5 minutes.

I think Griddy is a cool idea but only if you have something to automatically cut your usage when the price spikes to $9 per kWh like it did last summer.

It spiked to the regulatory max of $5, which hit me while I was at work. I still saved money compared to most other energy plans in my area.

Though yes, it would have been better if I could have adjusted.

It does in Australia: https://www.amberelectric.com.au/ (disclaimer: I work there)

I can see you're hiring; I'm on the market, what's your thoughts about the workplace? Super interesting industry!

Not true, it would work with hourly pricing. Still requires smart meters but those are something like 60-70% of homes in the US now. Even without real time or time of use based pricing, load shifting can still be valued and paid for as a service. Look up Demand Response: >$1Bn market in the US.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response

Since solar energy doesn't happen after sunset, the idea can still work even just assuming power is cheaper during daylight.

There are even open protocols used in the wild. SunnyHome has it working for example for using your local solar electricity.

It works well if you can aggregate the distributed resources so they're large enough to bid at the wholesale level.

The market is a little more dynamic than that, wholesale bidding into the ISOs is still the biggest option but many utilities run load shifting programs of various sizes as well.

Still, the conclusion is like you said. There's basically no real-world scenario where it makes sense for a residential customer to go it alone, because they can make at most a couple hundred bucks a year. So makes sense for their device companies or someone else to figure it out with utility and pay thousands of homeowners to agree to participate. Ohmconnect has a cool service in California.

Demand response programs are great because of their scale and ability to provide incentives and command and control without directly interacting with the markets.

The real big thing is aggregating the aggregations. Distributed Energy Management Systems (DERMS) / Virtual Power Plant Management Systems are an active research topic.

one could imagine a company that gives fridges out for FREE and sells the aggregated “balancing energy” to recoup the cost of the fridge.

I like the business model. But it'd surely be advertising at you too. The pressure for the owner to pick up those free dollars would be just too strong.

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Sense is great, but way overkill for demand response. Also, measurement needs to be billing grade accuracy, and I don't think Sense is going for that