Be Careful with Energy Consumption






A common concern in times of confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic is that suddenly CFE has raised energy prices. Although in previous months an X amount equivalent to energy consumption was paid, this has tripled and in some cases quadrupled, without the quantity consumed having increased proportionally. But, I am sorry to disappoint you, on this occasion it is not CFE’s fault, but rather ignorance of the tariff model and the consumption of our homes.

In Mexico the electric tariff of domestic users is controlled, this means that, even if there were a provider different from CFE, it would charge us practically the same. The energy reform sought to open the electric market but not all users have the opportunity to choose their supplier; only large industrial users or large commercial chains. These are called qualified users.

You and I, domestic users, enter into the second category, basic users. The idea is that there would be a type of user with a controlled and flat tariff so that they would always pay the same in their electricity bill and that, eventually, they could change provider by becoming qualified users or be represented by a load aggregator.

The idea of this is that we could play with our consumption and, in some cases, pay less than the controlled or protection tariff. How? For example, if I know that I will leave the city for two weeks, I know that I can pay a lower amount of energy; if I charge my cellphone and computer in the hours of lower demand, my consumption can be lower.

But this that I am telling you is, precisely, the reason behind why many people complain today about exorbitant energy prices. In Mexico, the tariff is tiered, this means that the kWh you consume in the first tier are much cheaper than those of the second tier and those of the third tier, much, but much, more expensive than those of the second tier.

This means that if before you consumed 75 kWh of energy per month, but you and your family spent time away, at school, the office, the cinema or the gym, a relatively low bill always arrived. However, in Mexico City, for example, each additional kWh after 75 costs twice as much as the first 75. In turn, each additional kWh after 140 kWh will cost three times more than the first 75.

By spending more time at home, energy consumption has grown.

In times of confinement, then, people spend more time at home, with the television on, the computer, the lights, the microwave oven; the washing machine, the heating or the air conditioning. The average consumption of households has doubled and this implies that they pay two or three times more because the level of subsidy provided by the State is exhausted.

What can we do? Know your consumption patterns and your appliances. For example, a baby bottle sterilizer consumes 750 W. This means that, using it 15 minutes twice a day in a month, you will consume a little more than 11 kWh —15% of the subsidized tariff in Mexico City. A television consumes 100 W, so having it on 12 hours a day would represent 36 kWh per month, half of your electric subsidy in Mexico City. By the way, if you have any normal 100 W bulb, it is spending the same as an LED TV. What are you waiting for? Change it.

For this reason, in times of pandemic, it is most likely that your consumption has increased and your electric bill comes higher. So be careful with consumption because you could move to the feared Domestic High Consumption tariff, of which I will tell you on another occasion.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: October 21, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/cuidado-con-el-consumo-de-energia/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240804051440/https://businessinsider.mx/cuidado-con-el-consumo-de-energia/ [Archived]

Decarbonization: The First D of the Energy Future






“This century can credibly be called the century of decarbonization”

-Angela Merkel

This week we begin with the first installment of a four-part series called “the Ds of the energy future,” namely: decarbonization, digitalization, decentralization and democratization. To begin, we touch on the topic of decarbonization, which is one of the social demands that has gained the most strength in recent years.

Decarbonization refers to the process of eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in economies which, for simplification, is measured in equivalent carbon dioxide. In such a way that the words coal or carbon, in this sense, are used as a reference to this.

The task is not simple, since it is necessary to advance in means of transport that use renewable sources of energy, where the main challenge is found in aircraft and large vessels; as well as in energy efficiency in buildings, electronic devices and industrial processes; and, of course, in the generation of electric energy.

Said in another way, decarbonization would be the most important result of a deep energy transition where the use of fossil sources of energy is eliminated, or at least reduced to the strictly necessary minimum. The challenge is enormous, however, it is already part of the international agenda contained in the Paris Agreement.

In matters of electric energy generation, renewable technologies, particularly solar and wind, have reduced their costs rapidly in the last 10 years. With low technological costs, the proliferation of renewable projects has accelerated throughout the world. Large-scale projects, whether wind, onshore and offshore, as well as large solar farms, have appeared on all continents.

But it has not stopped there. On a small scale, in those places where projects have found fertile ground, roofs have been covered with photovoltaic panels for distributed energy generation, which allows users of more basic markets to save on their energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while in more advanced markets, they can charge their electric cars, store energy and sell energy to the grid or to their neighbors.

Nevertheless, to continue advancing in the correct direction of decarbonization, it is necessary to advance in the technological development of new-generation batteries that can store the energy generated by renewable sources and permanently exorcise the ghost of intermittency.

Medium- and long-term decarbonization policies include, in addition to incentives to use renewable sources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in production, the penalization for emissions in energy consumption. In some countries, advanced carbon bond markets have already been developed where one must pay or compensate for the emissions directly related to their energy consumption; whether in fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas; or in electricity, depending on the energy mix that was used for its generation.

Finally, decarbonization in the global energy future will be complemented by other elements such as digitalization, decentralization and democratization, which together generate positive feedback among each of them for the benefit of all the citizens of the world. We will talk about these in the following columns. Until then.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: July 15, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/descarbonizacion-futuro-energetico-energia-circular-paul-alejandro-sanchez-opinion/ [offline]
Archived Link: No server is available to handle this request. [Archived]

A New Generation of Consumers




“Many want the government to protect the consumer.

A more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

– Milton Friedman

I dare say that in Mexico a consumer culture has not been developed in the energy sector, particularly in the electric sector; at least not at the level of domestic consumers or in small, family businesses and small shops. The citizens who make up the base of the pyramid of electric energy users.

Subsidies to energy prices together with a de facto monopoly in the sale of energy to small consumers, residential and commercial, have distorted the role of the consumer in the Mexican electric sector, which seems more like a captive taxpayer who has to obligatorily maintain the existence of operational and administrative inefficiencies of a market with a single electricity provider.

Small consumers do not have a real idea of their electricity consumption, nor of its real cost, and very few know the levels of energy efficiency of their household appliances and electronic devices.

In these days of confinement, most Mexican households have verified this situation in their electricity bills because by spending more time at home, our consumption has also increased in proportion. A person leaves a series running on TV while being on a video call with the lights on in an unoccupied room and charging a cellphone, laptop and tablet. Does it remind anyone of something?

While this happens in Mexico, in more mature markets such as the United States, Europe, Canada or Australia, a new generation of electricity consumers is being born that takes advantage of technological and social changes to have a more active role and assert its power. The four Ds that drive these changes are: Digitalization, Decentralization, Decarbonization and Democratization of energy. Which I will address in future columns.

This new generation of electricity consumers has indoor meters in their homes that allow them to observe the level of consumption in real time and the price of energy; they have connected smart devices that can regulate electricity consumption, for example in matters of indoor climate control; or schedule tasks, for example washing cycles, at 3:00 a.m. when the price of electricity is cheaper or dim the lights when no one is using them.

Additionally, there are applications for mobile devices that allow them to know consumption and establish limits and alarms, know the energy efficiency of the connected devices and observe their comparative degradation and know market prices. Some of them, more sophisticated, already integrate solar panels on their roofs, with storage systems and charging systems for electric cars, which are also storage systems.

But most importantly, these new-generation consumers have the right and control of choice in their hands. There are numerous electricity providers which offer electricity plans based on the needs of each of the users. There are plans for almost every type of consumer.

Whoever wants to consume 100% renewable energy and obtain their compliance certificate, or whoever wants to reduce their demand during peak hours in exchange for compensation; or whoever only operates on Saturdays and Sundays or at night, or whoever has their solar panels; all of them can obtain different offers from different providers with different prices and different characteristics.

For Mexicans to be able to enjoy an experience like that of mature markets, it is important that electric users become new-generation consumers who take control of choice and demand from rulers changes to move in that direction. We are still far away, but this evolution cannot be stopped.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: July 8, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/una-nueva-generacion-de-consumidores-electricidad-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20200805222332/https://businessinsider.mx/una-nueva-generacion-de-consumidores-electricidad-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez-energia-circular/ [Archived]