Baselines and Relative and Absolute Deltas

A continuing point of contention is unspecified prices that are changes from current prices. I want to start a conversation on baselines and relative and absolute change.

As I understand the argument, there are times when it would be simple to send out a signal to everyone announcing that something is going to change. Whether you currently buy power at 0.02, o.08, 0.20, or 0.45 $ per kW h, you will experience a price change. Such a change could be one of two forms.

(1) Relative: All prices double at 3:00 this afternoon

(2) Absolute: App prices go up by 0.25 this at 3:00 this afternoon.

Do we need both (assuming we need either)? I think it is essential here that we are discussing functionality and information required, and not discussing whether it is possible to communicate some price signal that was created to make sense at a PUC meeting as a way to juke the existing systems which only had one register free and that worked as a plausible hack on existing software and hardware—which is alas how many tariffs get written.

Discussion:

1) Relative can be handled with no changes to the existing data structures, but with the creation of a special currency case, the “baseline”. Prices at 2:00 AM are .3 baselines. Price this afternoon is 1.4 baselines. This can make a clean set of rules for systems to optimize energy use over a 24 hour period.

2) Delta’s require more facts. It is unclear whether a rise of /50/kW H is interesting without special knowledge. Each system would need to hold occult knowledge, i.e. what was the price before. Is this change insignificant or is it a several-fold change in price? Delta’s also require a larger change in the base communication—it needs additional fields (and complexity and a new source of ono-interoperation).

I would prefer no baseline pricing. I know others fell that we need relative pricing. I am stepping back from that argument for a moment.

The question here is what does relative pricing look like, and what is the simplest kind of relative pricing we can use.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” -- Upton Sinclair.

Toby Considine
TC9, Inc

OASIS Technical Advisory Board
TC Chair: oBIX & WS-Calendar

TC Editor: EMIX, EnergyInterop

U.S. National Inst. of Standards and Tech. Smart Grid Architecture Committee

Email: Toby.Considine@gmail.com
Phone: (919)619-2104

http://www.tcnine.com/
blog: www.NewDaedalus.com

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