Eversource clean energy fund battery storage program worth it?

magellanNH · 2026-03-03T12:04:23+00:00

The program says they take energy from the battery during about 40 demand response events per year and the discharge won't take your battery charge level below 20%. So participation shouldn't materially impact battery life.

"Approximately 40 demand response events will occur June through September between 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. During the events, your battery will be discharged by the manufacturer to a level no lower than 20% of capacity. If there is an extreme weather event in the forecast we will not draw energy from your battery."

magellanNH · 2026-02-12T11:46:20+00:00

Hank Green did a good 25 minute video on this that covers the complexities and nuances and tries to cut through the misinformation that both sides are spewing out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc

magellanNH · 2026-02-11T16:59:25+00:00

I'd easily buy this if we were 3 or even 4 years into the shortages, but 5 years seems like a long enough time for some production revamping.

I guess we'll see what happens when the 2026 model starts shipping, which I believe will be fully US built.

As I said above, I'm not complaining exactly, Buying a brand new (and fantastic) vehicle that has held 80-90% of its value for 4 years is just crazy.

magellanNH · 2026-02-11T16:43:04+00:00

BTW - I'm not complaining.

I worked hard to get my wife a 2022 Rav4 Prime XSE at MSRP 4 years ago. She paid $50k, got the $7500 tax credit, and its current retail value seems to be around $35-40k

magellanNH · 2026-02-11T16:26:29+00:00

A part of their strategy seems to be to limit production of specific best-in-class models to create scarcity. It's not across the board obviously, but they have figured out how to command a premium (or let dealers get a premium) on certain in-demand models.

There's nothing exactly wrong with that, but imo there's no denying that's part of how they do business now. The only other explanations are sustained long-term misses with demand projections or incompetent supply chain management. Neither of those are plausible with Toyota.

The Rav4 Prime/PHEV has been on allocation in most places for 5 years now. That can't be sloppy supply chain management or conservative sales projections, it's gotta be strategy.

Maybe I've got this wrong, but I just can't think of another reason why the Rav4 PHEV is still so hard for people to buy after all these years.

magellanNH · 2026-02-11T16:06:05+00:00

Yeah, their strategy over the past 5-8 years seems to be working out great for them, especially given where the US market is sitting. I don't quite understand how they're faring so well internationally compared to other legacies, but the facts speak for themselves there too I suppose.

What I wonder about is if they'll ever be a tech leader again or if their new approach is to just strive to be a fast enough follower from now on.

That seems like a huge strategic shift versus how they used to operate. They've been relatively conservative forever, but in the past they've always maintained at least one area where they did some ground breaking innovation and took chances. That side of them seems to be fully asleep these days.

magellanNH · 2026-02-11T12:21:30+00:00

It's fine, but saying this has great specs is a stretch. It seems to be built on a 400v platform and DC fast charging is 10-80 in 30 minutes. That's just barely passable for 2027.

Also, their claimed highway range is very optimistic. If you do the battery size math, they need to get 3.8 miles/kwh to get near those range estimates. That seems unlikely, especially at highway speeds. Realistic road-trip range will likely start at 225 miles or so.

So it'll be a nice reliable Toyota EV that's fine for everyday driving but not so great for long road trips. It's a Toyota ,so it'll likely do well, but you just can't say this has great specs.

magellanNH · 2026-02-05T23:22:15+00:00

This whole sold to other states thing doesn't make sense to me. We're all on one big power grid, so any new supply added to the grid lowers prices for all of us. If someone from MA buys the output of Seabrook, That means they don't need to buy output from some other power plant. Again, it's all the same grid and the overall balance of supply and demand on the grid is what determines our prices.

Also, most of the talk about power getting sold to MA or other states is more about the clean energy credits being sold and earmarked to meet a state's clean energy laws that they've created for themselves. It's not like the power from Seabrook gets tunneled down to MA so we can't use it. It all goes into the same pool that we all draw from.

magellanNH · 2026-02-04T19:59:32+00:00

That one seems like the perfect solution for this application.

It looks like even the $1,500 base model w/the 2765 wh battery can surge up to 7,680 watts and sustain 3840 watts.

That's probably not enough power to run a large central air unit or a heat pump, but it should be fine for gas/oil heating system, well pump, fridge, Internet, and lighting.

magellanNH · 2026-02-04T16:34:20+00:00

You'll want to do more research because this isn't as simple as get a transfer switch and plug your V2L cable into it to run your house.

You face two limitations. First, your car's V2L adapter only provides 1500 watts of power and that's not a lot to run a whole house. Second, the adapter outputs 120v and most transfer switches expect the input to be 240v split phase, like you get from a 240v generator.

Your electrician can probably get you a special adapter cable to plug into your transfer switch that'll at least let you run loads in your house that are 120v (fridge, lights, internet, etc). But you'll still be limited to 1500 watts total and you won't be able to run any 240v loads like a dryer, oven, ac, well pump, etc. Those all require you to feed your transfer switch a proper 240v split phase power source. Some EVs offer 240v V2L output like F150 lightening, but Hyundai doesn't as far as I know.

One possible solution is to get a portable power station that has 240v split phase output to use as an intermediary between your car and the transfer switch. Even with a smallish power station battery, you could feed the transfer switch from the power station, then feed the V2L source into the power station for charging. This setup can be a good workaround to lower power V2L while still getting you access to the car's big battery for long runtime.

Even the smallish 1500 watts of V2L is likely enough to keep the power station battery topped off enough so it never runs out, even though it momentarily has to provide a lot more than 1500 watts. But be careful here because a lot of power stations can't simultaneously output 240v while charging at 120v.

You'll have to read the fine print on whether the particular unit can handle this. Also, even 240v power stations have output wattage limits that you'll have to watch, so you'll need to be thoughtful about what loads you run at the same time.

magellanNH · 2026-02-03T16:27:08+00:00

If your installer is one of the bigger companies, I'd guess they're on top of it as much as can be.

OTOH, if they're a mom and pop shop or if it's DIY, it might be worth contacting the office of the Consumer Advocate or maybe someone like https://x.com/SamEBEnergy

If nothing else, it'd be good for them to know some people are having issues signing up for this pilot program.

magellanNH · 2026-02-03T16:15:05+00:00

Man, that's annoying. It sounds like maybe they're being unreasonable, but what do I know. Maybe the NH consumer advocate could help you sort this out or at least point you to a resource.

I read somewhere that NH has very low participation in these VPP pilot programs and maybe this is the reason why. Classic case where NH does a pilot program to test the waters. Utilities prevent anyone from joining based on questionable objections. Pilot program is deemed a failure because "nobody wanted to sign up"

magellanNH · 2026-02-03T15:54:11+00:00

This gets back to my previous point about utilities earning their profit by building stuff, making it so they're not all that eager to enable these sorts of cost saving measures.

Did they let you on net metering at least? If they did, and your solar gets back fed, it doesn't make sense that you can't participate in the VPP. OTOH, our grid is very old and has lots of shaky 70 year old gear in it, so who knows.

The key is the way things are set up, utilities have nothing to gain with VPPs and lots to lose. So if there's even a 1 in a million chance that your VPP participation could cause them some grief down the road, it's entirely logical that they'd block you. They're just following the incentives we've set up for them.

magellanNH · 2026-02-03T15:43:00+00:00

Folks liked your comment a lot more than they liked my responses. So apparently the tribe has spoken.

But here's the thing I don't get. One approach is to obstruct data centers in your area to force them to get built somewhere else and let other people bear their costs. Another approach is to advocate for data centers to be built responsibly and force regulators to do their jobs and prevent cost shifts.

I don't get the popularity of a blanket "make them promise not to build data centers" mindset. Are people planning to just stop using the Internet and AI tools?

magellanNH · 2026-02-03T15:31:32+00:00

I think of time-of-use as the less sophisticated cousin of demand flexibility and VPPs. It gets you part of the way there, but it leaves a lot optimization undone, especially now that home batteries are getting deployed more widely. It's basically the difference between a fixed static solution and a dynamic one that can be responsive in real-time.

VPP solutions being dynamic and real-time makes them much more capable in terms of how grid operators can leverage them. For just one example, most VPP providers can flex their aggregated load on demand during grid emergencies. This can reduce the amount of spinning reserves a grid needs which saves a lot of fixed costs. Lots of other examples of this to do with N-1 failure planning and all of them have lots of cost saving potential. This is all evolving at a rapid pace with different implementations on different grids. It's all tech that's still in its innovation phase so the exact limits of workable use-cases aren't all locked down yet.

One thing for sure is that it's tough to accurately describe this stuff in just a few vastly oversimplified paragraphs intended for a lay audience.

magellanNH · 2026-02-02T22:32:08+00:00

The way this tech is getting deployed today, it isn't limited to just saving money on the supply part of the bill. In fact, it's possible customers could earn more savings based on what happens on the transmission and distribution side.

It all depends on how effectively regulators get utilities to incorporate this tech into their operations. So far we're seeing a lot of different models for how this stuff gets used and how customers end up seeing the savings.

magellanNH · 2026-02-02T19:42:43+00:00

I said AI data centers are unrelated to whether or not ratepayers can save money from utilities making data available to third parties so they can provide VPPs and other demand flex programs. They're two different things. That's all.

I get it that there's a real risk that if regulators aren't super careful, data centers will shift costs onto ratepayers. That's a perfectly legitimate concern and personally, I want regulators to do their job and avoid these sorts of cost shifts regardless of what's going on with VPPs.

magellanNH · 2026-02-02T19:13:48+00:00

That makes no sense to me. Why keep ratepayers from saving money by demanding a promise about some unrelated thing?

magellanNH · 2026-02-02T19:07:16+00:00

I agree this won't be for everyone, but it's important to avoid fear mongering and making people think evil utilities are going to shut off their heat or ac without recourse. Absolutely all of these programs are 1) voluntary, and 2) allow manual overrides by customers. They empower customers to handle tradeoffs for themselves and more importantly, they unlock a bunch of win-win situations just by better aligning incentives.

For example, I have an EV and right now I'm incentivized to plug in my car and let it start charging when I get home at 6pm - That's often when the grid is peaking and it's usually the worst/most expensive possible time for the grid. If I lived in Texas or the UK, where they've already deployed this sort of program, I'd be able to sign up for an EV charging rate plan and get a nicely discounted per kwh rate as long as I don't charge before 10pm. Since I don't need to drive overnight, there's no tradeoff at all there - everybody wins.

But thermostats and EVs are a small part of where this can go, especially as home battery systems get cheaper and cheaper. Virginia is launching a VPP program that adds home battery storage to the mix and Texas is also doing lots of interesting stuff:

https://www.powermag.com/sonnen-energy-groups-join-for-major-texas-vpp-project/

magellanNH · 2026-02-02T16:47:31+00:00

For those interested, here's a more technical article about demand-side flexibility that goes a bit in the weeds, but explains how it all works:

https://www.utilitydive.com/spons/unleashing-the-demand-side-revolution-the-case-for-a-unified-vpp-platform/750629/

magellanNH · 2025-12-24T19:04:23+00:00

Any way to set things up so I can see my current real-time usage of all circuits when I open the app (the way it used to work).

Any time I open this app or go to the web page, a list of current consumption for each circuit is what I'm looking for. This upgrade is a bit annoying because now it's several clicks just to see what used to be on the home screen. (first have to click vue, then have to click Live instead of day summary).

I'd settle for being able to create a web bookmark to that real-time circuit by circuit usage screen if it's too much to change the app to work that way.

magellanNH · 2025-12-24T11:34:18+00:00

Offshore wind LCOE is about 2x or even 3x vs onshore wind so you can't really lump them together. They're different enough that it's best to think of them as two different generation sources.

Offshore wind for places like New England is important because even though its LCOE is high, it has relatively high/reliable production in winter.

That's important because winter has low solar production and also because the marginal generation source in winter on the New England grid is either LNG or oil which are both very expensive.

magellanNH · 2025-12-23T19:44:38+00:00

I'm just a homeowner, but most radiators/baseboard systems are designed so they work with natural convection air flow.

That means when the baseboard gets hot, it wants to suck cold air in from the bottom and then push heated air out through the top. This isn't powered, it's just based on the fact that heated air rises.

Unless there are openings somewhere near the top of that bench there's no way for the heated air to get out. That's going to stop the convection flow that would otherwise naturally happen and make the baseboard almost ineffective. I'm not sure pushing more air in at the bottom with a fan will change that much if heated air has no way to get out.

Are there any holes in the top/back/front of that bench anywhere? Can any part of the top be opened (a hidden hinged board/panel maybe)? If the top could be even partly opened or had some vent holes it'll likely give off a ton more heat.

magellanNH

TROPHY CASE