You can subsidize the build-out of wind turbines by using renewable energy credits in your electric plans. In wind surpluses, however, drivers are not guided to charge. Thus, demand still lags behind wind production -- which is why wind turbines stop.A turbine that fails to turn, earns no subsidy. In WindEverest, your charge follows the expected peak wind, so your turbines never fail to turn.Your charge at wind peaks lets them get back to earning their subsidies. That lets their builders build more, because the new demand boosts their economics. We don't 'REC'ommend skipping RECs altogether. Rather, by adding your timely charges, you boost the work your subsidies are already doing.
In the N. American plains, wind is more reliable and strong than in most other parts of the continent. Though variable, winds follow both seasonal patterns, as well as daily patterns. 3AM is normally within two hours of a peak in wind intensity that is not matched by the 12 hours ahead or the 12 hours earlier, at least for wind turbines that are well away from shore. This pattern, at the grid-level, is expected to persist for at least a decade, or until offshore wind turbines are present in large numbers. Moreover, in the context of deep troughs in demand that occur at 3AM, renewables, as a class, still end up displacing more carbon burning plants. Rarely, does the wind slow down enough and the solar generation peak enough to beat this peak in renewables -- particularly, where hydroelectric renewables are unavailable. Let's face it, at 3AM breezy just gets easy. If you have not changed your Profile to indicate that 3AM is your preferred hour to charge -- do it now. WindEverest will assign the lowered carbon emissions present at that time to all your future charges. Don't forget to set your car 'schedule' or 'timer' function to trigger charging at that time too. Otherwise, your car is assigned the carbon emissions at 9PM, which aren't great for most of the grids.
WindEverest reports the wind penetration in three North American grids: Electric reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT); Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO); and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). Each of the grids, ERCOT, MISO and SPP, are distinct and have barriers to transfer energy beyond their grid. There are some tiny losses grid-wide. But, within a grid, once the electricity leaves a generator, it is fungible with all the other electricity, despite the losses. What this means, is that it is impossible to label an electron that leaves a generator and see where it ends up. This is similar to the difficulty knowing the exact source of the gasoline many people put in their fuel tanks. Importantly, because the addition of a generator instantly mixes that generator's inputs with all the others, the best that can be done, is to, within the grid boundaries, assign a proportion of the new generator's electricity into the mix. This is how WindEverest determines wind penetration. Using wind penetration, WindEverest treats the wind megawatts (MW) as evenly consumed throughout the grid where it originates. If that grid is Southwest Power Pool (SPP), then electric vehicles (EVs) charging in states such as Oklahoma and Kansas each contribute and/or benefit from the wind to the same degree. Similarly, those parts of Texas served by ERCOT are provided a metric for wind applicable within their grid.
WindEverest collects historical and predicted megawatts (MW) for a grid to determine a range of expected values for each season. Using short-term weather reports, WindEverest plots the expected MW output of the wind fleet for each upcoming night, within the expected range. The use of MW tends to be very abstract for people. Similarly, the statistical bounds of the range also unnecessarily complicate things, as far as understanding good values within the ranges. The central question is: "Is it a good night to charge?" WindEverest partitions the expected ranges into five, near-equal grade probabilities. Depending on the forecast MWs for a particular night, WindEverest selects a grade based on which of where the forecast wind MW inputs will be in the expected range. So, over the long term, roughly 20% of the grades fall into each of the A, B, C, D and F grades ranges. Weather, being a complex system, can frequently produce patterns that can appear random. So, on the short term, grades can clump together -- such as can happen when there is an unseasonable slow week of wind. So, it is inevitable, that some weeks will provide fewer opportunities to charge solely on the 'A' nights. This is why WindEverest creates these tiers -- so that a choice can be made to select the best of what is available.