Community Bill Reducer

A program company Fluidstack owns pays for upgrades and a battery in the homes nearest the campus. Households pay nothing.

Open to every home within 5 miles (4,744 homes, closest first). A home gets each upgrade that costs less than $3,000 per verified kW in that home, decided on its own numbers, and a 13.5 kWh battery. Installers from Appalachian Power's contractor list work at fixed prices.

$10M costs Fluidstack between $3.7M and $8.5M, depending on what it buys and how the credit is counted.

In September Fluidstack, Cipher and Anthropic committed $10M to Colorado City's water system, in Mitchell County, Texas. It returns nothing on a bill. Here the same $10M buys capacity credits off the demand charge ($9.96 per kW-month, one for one) for 14 years, at 7%.

Net cost is the installed cost, less the 30% battery tax credit (subject to tax review), plus upkeep at $150 a home a year and the make-whole payment, less the credits, all over 14 years in today's dollars. In the export rows the program pays each household the make-whole, so its battery is worth at least what it would be measured to zero: no household does worse by letting the program export. Upgrades alone run out of homes before money: the electric-heated homes that sign up within 5 miles cost $8.4M, so that row spends $8.4M, not $10M.

• $212 per kW-year is the credit at which the "Upgrades plus 40.5 kWh" row pays for itself (the demand charge is $120).
• $7,600 installed for 27 kWh is the price at which batteries alone pay for themselves, against $18,000 at the bulk price assumed here.

Why homes, and not one battery at the substation

Fluidstack can buy the same kW for less. Homes cost two to three times as much per kW, and three things still make them the right choice: the statute's route is reductions from other retail customers, so a battery Fluidstack owns at the substation would count, if at all, as the campus's own resource; the households keep lower bills; and a fenced battery yard does not answer the county's question.

Three terms in the filing move the net cost most. Fluidstack can ask Appalachian Power for them.

1. Exports count. A battery is credited for what it sends to the grid over the 3-hour window, and the household is credited for those kWh at the on-peak rate (14.306 cents). That is the difference between the measured-to-zero row and the export rows above.
2. Every verified kW counts. Insulation and heat pumps lower the peak every winter day but cannot be called; Dominion has proposed counting only dispatchable capacity.
3. The credit applies below the floor. The table assumes the campus runs at full capacity. Appalachian Power bills new large loads on at least 80% of contract capacity, used or not; below that, a kW saved next door counts only if the filing makes it a bill credit.

In comments on the filing, these are the asks. Beyond the bill, the measured record of verified kW from the homes nearest the campus is the community case for Lot 32, the parcel next door that Fluidstack leases with an option to buy. The program design carries over to New York; there the obligation to fund it would fall on the site owner.

A resident applies for their home; Fluidstack follows it to verified kW.

Two working apps, built alongside the analysis. Try them on a program you set up yourself.

Set the area, the cap, the battery and the credit terms; the wizard gives the money table for your choices and runs your program in the sponsor console. The homeowner app reads the heating nameplate from a photo with a vision model. Nothing either stores.

Design decisions

• The credit is an ask, not a claimed saving. The law never mentions the campus's demand charge, so counting a verified kW against it is the first term to request in the filing.
• Every home near the campus is eligible, and each home gets the upgrades that cost less than $3,000 per kW in it: a heat pump replaces resistance heat, while a working heat pump, even an old one, stays.
• Batteries are sized by capacity (13.5, 27 or 40.5 kWh) and credited over the 3-hour peak window. Measured at the meter, a battery covers only the home's own load, so the base case credits that; exports are the filing's ask.
• The household bill is computed hour by hour on Appalachian Power's four residential schedules, and the cheapest is chosen. Most homes are already cheapest on the smart demand schedule, so the battery saves $33 a year on the bill.
• Exported kWh belong to the household, credited at the on-peak rate if the filing grants it. In any year exporting would leave a household with less than its battery saves measured to zero, the program pays the difference.
• The program averages three kinds of home and four kinds of heating, from Census, building footprints and Street View: most homes near the campus are about 1,500 sq ft, and about one in five is a manufactured home.
• Upkeep is part of the cost.