Smart Meter = smart move?

[Guest]

True Bernard but in climates such as ours, the slight "waste" heat gain given off by incandescent globes should, in theory at least, delay the heating thermostat kicking in by a minute or so thus no theoretical loss or gain.

 

1). In this weather?

2). Your central heating probably produces heat for less money.

[Guest]

I'm all for woodburning, it's there so why not. If you're in a rural area then it's abundant and if you're in an urban area then it's still abundant via skips etc.

It's only gonna end up in landfill anyway,

 

For those who think that carbon ought to be 'banned ' I ask you this.

 

1. How can you 'ban' an element of the Periodic Table

2. All the providers of fizzy drinks etc have been crying about the lack of CO2

3. As a carbon-based life form yourself, perhaps you ought to put your money where your mouth is and either a) stop breeding and/or b) top yourself on principle!

The worst kind of 'anti-carbon' nutters tend to have like 6 kids, but claim the moral high ground cos they don't have a car.

 

The problem with urban wood burning isn't co2 it's straight up localised pollution.

Burning crap from skips that's probably got paint on it is even worse.

[Metr0Land]

It on BBC TV News this morning about Citizens Advice Bureau calling for govt to spread rollout over another 3 years to 2023 due to problems creeping out of the woodwork.  Govt response (which no doubt would have been the same from any party).  'Now is not the time to take our foot off the pedal and give the energy companies any excuse to slow down.  Consumers are getting so much benefit from this........'

[JJGraphics]

. . . Consumers are getting so much benefit from this........'

 

 

Another load of round bouncy things . . .

 

John

[alastairq]

Amusing though the wood-burning issue is [i burn solely wood...my fire instructions specifically forbid the use of coal....]....I wonder how folk in Sheffield are getting on with the 'pollution'...coming from the moorland fires in Staffordshire?

 

Cannot be any worse than when the fella who has the woodland plot behind my home, [and who keeps prize cockerels]...decides to burn feathers [and useless bodies, no meat on them]...in his incinerator.

Most of the time he gets the prevailing wind direction right....but on occasions.......phew!

[Silver Sidelines]

Thanks Bernard - that had slipped my mind.

 

Incandescent lights produce a lot of heat as well as light, so there's some of the saving: LEDs run much cooler. A greater percentage of the power is turned into light instead of heat.

 

For the record we have made the following changes, 

 

60W CFL (flourescent tubes) now 22W LED (without the starters and ballasts)

70W SON (external flood light) now 30W LED  (new fitting)

40W halogen downlighter now 5W (240v without the 12v transformers)

40W Assorted candle / golf ball bulbs now 2 and 3W LED

 

There are huge savings to be made when replacing incandescent bulbs but again, where do the savings come from CFL (tubes) and the SON?

 

Thanks

 

Ray

[Reorte]

The problem with urban wood burning isn't co2 it's straight up localised pollution.

Burning crap from skips that's probably got paint on it is even worse.

I've heard people grumbling about it. Personally I don't have a problem with people burning wood but I don't live in an urban area, so the worst is a pleasant hint of smoke in the air. However I do wonder just how many people are burning the wrong stuff, unseasoned wood and as you say wood with paint on, or that's been treated in some other way.

[Nick C]

The worst kind of 'anti-carbon' nutters tend to have like 6 kids, but claim the moral high ground cos they don't have a car.

 

Statistically the best thing you can do to reduce your environmental impact, by a huge margin, is to have one less child - 58.6 tonnes of co2-equivalent/year, compared with 2.4t/y for not driving a car...

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-footprint-climate-change-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html

Edited August 10, 2018 by Nick C

[alastairq]

Statistically the best thing you can do to reduce your environmental impact, by a huge margin, is to have one less child - 58.6 tonnes of co2-equivalent/year, compared with 2.4t/y for not driving a car...

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-footprint-climate-change-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html

What do we now do with all these surplus children, then?   

[PatB]

What do we now do with all these surplus children, then?   

[Enterprisingwestern]

It on BBC TV News this morning about Citizens Advice Bureau calling for govt to spread rollout over another 3 years to 2023 due to problems creeping out of the woodwork.  Govt response (which no doubt would have been the same from any party).  'Now is not the time to take our foot off the pedal and give the energy companies any excuse to slow down.  Consumers are getting so much benefit from this........'

 

What the government response is supposed to say is "oh sh!t, we've been rumbled".

 

Mike.

[melmerby]

Thanks Bernard - that had slipped my mind.

 

 

For the record we have made the following changes, 

 

60W CFL (flourescent tubes) now 22W LED (without the starters and ballasts)

70W SON (external flood light) now 30W LED  (new fitting)

40W halogen downlighter now 5W (240v without the 12v transformers)

40W Assorted candle / golf ball bulbs now 2 and 3W LED

 

There are huge savings to be made when replacing incandescent bulbs but again, where do the savings come from CFL (tubes) and the SON?

 

Thanks

 

Ray

What 60W CFL tubes???

Fluoresents with ballasts and starters aren't usually CFL. Some very early ones did have a iron ballast, but no long tubes AFAIK

CFL usually have an extremely efficient hi-freq inverter and some long tubes also have hi-freq inverters (our 58W units do) which waste little energy.

 

Hi wattage LEDs can also waste significant power which is dissipated in a heat sink.

The most efficient are so called "filament" LEDs where the LEDs are many low power ones in series rather than fewer higher power ones in parallel, so not needing any step down circuitry or heat sink which wastes power.

 

BTW I havent used a filament lamp in years, Our guest house which we sold in 2007 had all CFLs and was probably the first in Keswick but we didn't publicise the fact (Another claimed that fact after we had gone all CFL!)

Even the outside lights in our current house are CFLs, LEDs to come later.

 

We removed the halogen bulbs that the previous owner had scattered about this house and replaced them with conventional fittngs with either CFL or LED. (anybody got a use for 4 x 105VA halogen drivers?)

 

I would like to find a LED replacement for the 30W CFL (which is 2200+ lumen) in our large light fittings (the previous owner had 3x40W tungsten bulbs units) the most I can find is 1521 lumens in a parallel LED type "bulb".

 

Cheers

Keith

[duncan]

Statistically the best thing you can do to reduce your environmental impact, by a huge margin, is to have one less child - 58.6 tonnes of co2-equivalent/year, compared with 2.4t/y for not driving a car...

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-footprint-climate-change-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html

 

 

Is that the energy required to produce the child  ?

[Silver Sidelines]

Thanks Keith for the extra detail.

 

I said my electrical knowledge was limited.

 

What 60W CFL tubes???

Fluoresents with ballasts and starters aren't usually CFL. S..h

 

Just to repeat, 60W fluorescents replaced with 22W LEDs - I have ten so a useful energy saving.

 

Comparing before and after energy consumption for the whole house I reckon we are at least 1kWhr per day better off i.e. (365*15p*1)= c£55/year.

 

Maybe not a lot of money but it makes one feel warmer inside!

 

As an aside we have our own 'smart meter'.  It is called 'eddi' and manages the surplus electricity from our PV panels.  Our problem is that if the sun comes out and we generate some sensible power our supply from Scottish Power is not able to accept the power, the voltage goes up and the inverter switches off. 'eddi' grabs the surplus electricity and diverts it into our immersion heater.  I understand from my 'green energy man' that Scottish Power will not accept any further renewable connections in south west Scotland because their system is already overloaded.

 

Not a very smart situation but then Scottish Power has Spanish owners to answer to.

 

Ray

[Enterprisingwestern]

Not a very smart situation but then Scottish Power has Spanish owners to answer to.

 

In that case be prepared for a price hike when you go on to the Spanish system of billing.

 

Mike.

[Silver Sidelines]

Thanks Mike

 

A very muddled situation.

 

In that case be prepared for a price hike when you go on to the Spanish system of billing.

 

Mike.

 

As far as I can tell we don't have a contract with Scottish Power who are the network provider.  We buy and sell our electricity from two other separate companies.  The last time our export meter was read it had been contracted to Morrisons.  Likewise our import meter gets read by Accuread - maybe every two years.

 

The situation is perhaps similar to the railways with different companies all using the same basic infrastructure. 

 

Ray

Edited August 11, 2018 by Silver Sidelines

[Reorte]

... Scottish Power will not accept any further renewable connections in south west Scotland because their system is already overloaded.

 

The infrastructure was designed to deliver power one-way from a large power station, multiple small generation schemes may well produce more at times than the local systems can handle since they weren't ever designed to do that. Apparently it's quite an issue for many small schemes.

[E3109]

Is that the energy required to produce the child  ?

If only!

[melmerby]

 

As an aside we have our own 'smart meter'.  It is called 'eddi' and manages the surplus electricity from our PV panels.  Our problem is that if the sun comes out and we generate some sensible power our supply from Scottish Power is not able to accept the power, the voltage goes up and the inverter switches off. 'eddi' grabs the surplus electricity and diverts it into our immersion heater.  I understand from my 'green energy man' that Scottish Power will not accept any further renewable connections in south west Scotland because their system is already overloaded.

 

Not a very smart situation but then Scottish Power has Spanish owners to answer to.

 

Ray

I believe they are not alone in doing that.

I understand there are a lot of places where you can't sell surplus power because the grid is just not up to it.

 

Cheers

 

keith

[jjb1970]

In some ways I think smart meters are an obsolete idea. The government embraced the idea and decided it'd be splendid if we all had them in an era of large centralised electricity generation and where worries (fears) about a lack of supply and brown/black outs were rife. Smart meters were seen as a way to educate people who consumed electricity about how they used electricity and so hopefully be more efficient and also to assist in potential use of pricing to suppress demand at key times (think train tickets). I think there was some merit in those ideas but only if based on a premise of large centralised generation and tight supply. Since then there has been a significant move towards distributed generation and the emergence of microgrids. Not yet in anything like the scale necessary to replace centralised thermal plants but it has been a major change and looking forward the future would seem to be an increase in these concepts combined with renewable energy (the UK is a world leader in terms of offshore wind, an unheralded success that never seems to be recognised) which sort of makes smart meters for consumers look a bit yesterday IMO.

[melmerby]

the UK is a world leader in terms of offshore wind, an unheralded success that never seems to be recognised

And which the tabloid press constantly mocks (as silly windmills) and others complain about the spoiling of the view.

A large expanse of open sea is IMHO not much of a view!

 

Keith

[Reorte]

And which the tabloid press constantly mocks (as silly windmills) and others complain about the spoiling of the view.

A large expanse of open sea is IMHO not much of a view!

Is to others though. By all means disagree but it sounds like you're in turn mocking people who disagree with you. As far as I'm concerned they're about as attractive as any other modern industrial installation, they're there and doing something we want done but make a mess of wherever they're put; they may be the least bad option we've got at present but I'd love another option to come around so we could get rid of them all. Better than on land but still a mess.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Reorte

[Reorte]

Back to the subject of smart meters there's been no respnse to ignoring the "confirm your appointment" email. I was on their site earlier to send a meter reading and found a "don't want a smart meter" button but it just shows a phone number, can't cancel it from the site.

[alastairq]

As I sat sipping a Maccydee's cappuccino,parked up on top of the Wolds above SHiptonthorpe, I idly counted [and stopped counting, when I realised what I was doing] the windy turbines visible to me [my eyesight ain't bad for an OAP]....at figures 60.

 

Windy turbines are very much a part of our rural landscape now.

 

{But I wonder whether they'd be tolerated in such numbers if the powers-that-be turned Hyde Park into a windy turbine field? }

 

I admit I supported local resistance to  a proposed gaggle of turbines but half a mile away from my front door....[to be erected purely as a profit-making enterprise by a landowner who wanted to make indecent sums of money from  a pair of fields only good for making bread].....so am happy to be a NIMBY..or NIMFY?    But then, it takes a peculiar type of person to willingly live within the shadows of Drax, for example?  [but not have any sort of financial or economic link to Drax?]

 

I also fear waking up one morning, to read that the Dogger bank has been propelled further eastwards towards Denmark, such were the numbers of wind turbines planted in  the sea bed?

[Reorte]

Windy turbines are very much a part of our rural landscape now.

And it's something that genuinely leaves me upset and depressed every time I see them. They might be a necessary evil at present but I cannot get my head around people who don't appear to understand why others dislike them.

 

 

But then, it takes a peculiar type of person to willingly live within the shadows of Drax, for example?

Definitely, although at least it generates a lot more electricity; if you could replace every thermal plant with a wind farm in the same location, covering the same area, they would be an improvement in every way, but you need an awful lot more than that to make a difference.