Allison Faris
Prosumer
My Net Zero EV
Now, what is a prosumer? It is a new term to me as well that I recently encountered while reading an excerpt of the VerdeXchange 2015 opening plenary “The Future is Now—The Green Economy Going to Scale” on The Planning Report. In the plenary, President and CEO of California ISO Steve Berberich referred to the 2,353 megawatts of solar in California, some of which is being produced by "prosumers," a combination of producer/consumer. Berberich talked about the need to balance a massive increase in cost with the coming massive overgeneration of electricity resulting from having solar energy produced during a limited time during the day (no sun at night folks). What will the likes of SCE, PG&E, LADWP and others do with this massive overgeneration during the day? Just shed it off the grid some how?Well, San Diego has a pilot project to see if the answer is dispatchable distributed energy through electric vehicle fleets: "electric vehicles directly participate as a grid resource in the wholesale market, vehicles respond to signals from the grid operator to reduce when electricity is scarce, and continue or resume charging when renewable generation is plentiful" This is exciting! I look forward to the day when my solar and my EV are both part of the solution to enhanced reliability, by adding and subtracting from the grid in a careful balancing act.
