[Noisebridge-discuss] interesting projects

[travis+ml-noisebridge at subspacefield.org]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:29:55PM -0800, Seth David Schoen wrote:
> This might be a bad thing ecologically, but I have wondered whether
> someone could make money by arbitraging electricity between utility
> customers who are paying different rates.  I haven't tried to
> calculate whether this is plausible, though.  (It's obviously
> plausible between households in different housing units in the same
> building, using extension cables.)

I think a good fuel cell system might be able to make money by buying
(and storing chemically) at night, when the rates are low, and
converting back to electricity and selling during the day, when demand
is high.

It would depend, however, on the day/night rate differential; it
has to exist, and be high enough, and the fuel cell has to be
efficient enough, and durable enough so that the profits exceed
any wear or upkeep (capital depreciation).

I haven't done a lot of research into them, so I don't know the
details, but I heard of a methanol fuel cell recently, and methanol is
just a bit easier to store than hydrogen ;-) It could also fuel
wearable computers.  Don't know if it's vaporware or real tech though.

As I understand it, the reasoning behind this is that the larger
stations actually must stay running 24 hours, because turning them on
requires significant power to be present (or there's a significant
start-up cost).  During the day, less efficient auxilliary generators
come on to supply daytime demand, and so the day-night rates vary.

Dams can also effectively store energy, by releasing during the
day and not releasing at night.  Or something like that.
-- 
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