Re:Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages
by toast0 on Sunday September 25, 2022 @04:15PM
(#32975616)
If I lived in -24C, it would be extremely valuable for me to have heat.
As it is, I live in a climate that does dip below 0C from time to time, and having access to heat is important, so I have a backup generator for the house, and another for the well, because water is important too. When I use them, just the energy cost is much higher than utility power, so I don't use them when utility power is available. There's capital cost and operational costs to pay too. Many people who live around me don't have generators, so they have to hope outages won't be too long, or that they can make it to a warming center --- but outages are often coincident with locally heavy snowfall and our roads are always steep, so that makes it difficult to travel even short distances to get to warmth.
In my area, the issue isn't rolling blackouts, it's usually lines broken due to falling trees. Paying more for uninterupted utilities wouldn't fix that, but if it were rolling blackouts, I would certainly prefer to pay more for utility power for essential loads rather than paying more for local generation for essential loads.
As it is, I live in a climate that does dip below 0C from time to time, and having access to heat is important, so I have a backup generator for the house, and another for the well, because water is important too. When I use them, just the energy cost is much higher than utility power, so I don't use them when utility power is available. There's capital cost and operational costs to pay too. Many people who live around me don't have generators, so they have to hope outages won't be too long, or that they can make it to a warming center --- but outages are often coincident with locally heavy snowfall and our roads are always steep, so that makes it difficult to travel even short distances to get to warmth.
In my area, the issue isn't rolling blackouts, it's usually lines broken due to falling trees. Paying more for uninterupted utilities wouldn't fix that, but if it were rolling blackouts, I would certainly prefer to pay more for utility power for essential loads rather than paying more for local generation for essential loads.