A wide range of pricing formats and tariffs per kWh have been represented.
Here on the Flathead Nation, at The Last Best Place, Montana, the not-for-profit, tribal owned, public electric power utility charges a basic connection charge of $15 per month and US$0.0689 kWh for residential customers; there are no time of day, or peak usage price adjustments, just a simple flat rate tariff schedule.
The tribe also owns the hydroelectric power generation dam on the Flathead River which is operated by their private company called Energy Keepers, and its sells some of the electricity to their public utility which distributes to the local end use customers. Most of the generated power is
sold to the wholesale grid in the
Pacific Northwest, with a few major
remote commercial power consuming customers.
There is no natural gas
service on the tribal reservation, just electricity, and if one desires private
propane or
heating oil service vendors.
One of the companies, I have co-founded developed a very efficient, novel
motor architecture under the development sponsorship of a major Chinese consortium which motors are being used in China's eBuses and heavy goods vehicles and now are being downsized for automobile sector and even to small scale for greatly enhanced efficiency of
Heating, Ventilation and
Air Conditioning systems. Soon we will be bringing the
motor technology into the North American electric vehicle sector, awaiting our first
delivery, hopefully by the end of January.
In
China the electric automobile now accounts for 19% of cars sold annually. In 2020 there were 1.25 million EVs sold in
China, in 2021 that rose to about 3 million.
Our joint venture partner, CATL accounted for 52+% of the
lithium battery production in China last year and 35% of the world's production. That's more than the next two largest manufacturers- LG Chem's LG Energy Solution (19%) and Panasonic (15%) combined. They are a very young company, having ramped up to be revenue producing in just the last 8 years and are expanding production capacity at breakneck speed.
It is interesting to see the evolution of the battery sector, including the expansion of the nascent BaaS (Battery as a Service) battery rental / swap business, in addition to the rapid
charging networks. Soon we will see the
lithium battery recycling business
ramp up and the materials becoming part of the circular economy. The hybridization of the chemistries of both LFP and Sodium Ion cells into one battery pack architecture is very innovative, very enabling in cold climates.