The Duck Curve

When utilities want to tell you how bad renewables are –particularly solar and batteries on homes an businesses– they turn to the duck curve.

The duck curve demonstrates how demand on the energy grid drops off significantly during the middle of the day, due to all the solar panels on houses, and then rockets back up in the evening as soon as the sun begins to set and people come home to turn on all of their heating, cooling and energy hog appliances.

The system, they say, can’t handle the variability.

You still with me? Or did I lose you at “energy grid?”

Well, stick with me because in this video I describe the real reason that utilities don’t want you to have more solar on your home. Spoiler alert, its money. But there is more to it than that, and there is something we can do about it.

The core of the problem is based in a century-old design feature of public utility commissions that regulate monopolies. In Arizona we have the Arizona Corporation Commission, or the ACC, which does this. In our case, our ACC is dominated by people who roll over for the utilities when it comes to clean energy, batteries and energy efficiency. 

Those commissioners and utilities try to scare people with untrue tales of “reduced reliability” due to renewables on your home. Balderdash!

This video is designed to be an intro to the concepts of the duck curve and why renewables + batteries + energy efficiency can solve the problem –and why utilities don’t want that to happen.

We’ve known for some time that this “trifecta of clean energy” is the solution to the problem of the duck curve, but entrenched interests continue to push back. Cries that California has higher energy costs due to renewables are either misinformed or a lie, and you will see why in the video.

Plus, there is more of Ellie.

I know. You are here for Ellie. I’m cool with that.