"Cheap" Off Peak Electricity.

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

Originally off peak was switched using a time clock with a spring reserve, then via a signal carried on (IIRC) a BBC Long Wave Broadcast.

 

I was told it used a clock based on the accuracy of the 50Hz which the CEGB maintained so tightly.  I was always sceptical of that not least because it didn't go wrong following interruptions caused by power cuts, and a Rugby WT (as was) receiver sounds much more plausible

[shady]

12 hours ago, RFS said:

 

Yep - you got that in one!

Probably not as effective for them now since EDF has had to shut down 6GW of Nuclear plants in France in the last month due to "issues" not clear when they will be back on line or if other plants will have similar issues.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/edf-shares-plunge-after-faults-found-french-nuclear-power-station-2021-12-16/

 

 

The main channel interconnector is down to half capacity and not expected to be fully back by next winter either. https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/10/15/fire-struck-ifa-interconnector-not-fully-operational-until-2023-national-grid-says/

 

Just before christmas the best fix my supplier could offer was  a 2 year fix of 37.97p per Kwh and a daily charge of 35.9p , not taking that as I am presently on the tariff cap of 20.6p per Kwh , this time last year I was only paying 10p per Kwh, come the next cap change I expect 25p per kwh to seem cheap , it will probably be set at whatever the highest figure that is deemed politically acceptable rather than what the companies need to cover their costs, the same with gas.

Wholesale gas prices might not have been making the news , but have still been at levels that would have seemed

unthinkable a year ago.

one source has told me that some business customers are being offered electricity at £1.10 per Kwh!!!!!!!

 

Lidl have thermal base layers on Thursday !!!

 

 

 

 

[Reorte]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

There are plenty of ways of looking at this, one being that China consumes about a third less energy per capita than the U.K. The US meanwhile consumes significantly more than twice as much as the U.K. per capita.

China might consume less energy per capita than the UK but it generates more CO2 per capita. The UK's pretty far down the list of developed nations on a per capita basis; it would be even further down the total if it wasn't so overpopulated.

[Nick C]

21 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Also talk of frequency monitoring chips in appliances (fridges, washing machines etc) that will turn them off when the frequency falls below a certain value.

Surely the fridge is something you want on all the time? Otherwise it'll cost a lot more (both in money and environmental impact) to replace the spoiled food every time...

[Reorte]

17 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Surely the fridge is something you want on all the time? Otherwise it'll cost a lot more (both in money and environmental impact) to replace the spoiled food every time...

 

It could cut off temporarily for short-lived spikes, e.g. everyone putting the kettle on at the end of a popular programme or half time in the football.

 

Note that this isn't an endorsement of the idea!

[30801]

11 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

It could cut off temporarily for short-lived spikes, e.g. everyone putting the kettle on at the end of a popular programme or half time in the football.

 

Note that this isn't an endorsement of the idea!

 

Yep. Your fridge will be fine for hours. It could still come on if things get too warm and not upset the grid as overall most fridges will still be off.

[Kickstart]

22 hours ago, RFS said:

 

I don' think this is the case. My Nightstor box gets a signal via supply when it's night-rate and there's an LED that lights up when the signal is being received which tells the unit it can charge. Currently the light is on between around midnight and 7am. Don't see how this signal can be different for the house next door.  I think you need smart meters for this function.

 

Difficult to do. With supply, distribution and metering all done by different organisations, a supplier can't really send a signal over the distribution grid to control things.

One reason why the idea of doing meter readings over the distribution network (which was feasable 30 odd years ago) was abandoned.

 

19 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

I’ve recently gone on a smart EV tariff with Octopus

 

this is 5p/KWh overnight 0030 to 0430

 

daytime is standard rate 24p/KWh 

 

so yes, such deals are still available and there will always be an excess of power at night whilst the wind blows and the nuclei collide

 

How long that EV tariff can last I don't know, as I when I last looked up the wholesale prices that was below the night time wholesale prices. Plenty of electricity suppliers have already gone bust, and I doubt Octopus can continue with a loss making tariff for that long.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[APOLLO]

Couple of old articles, The technology is not new.

 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article-6008959/Smart-meters-lead-surge-pricing-admits-Scottish-Power.html

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260556517_Peak_shaving_through_real-time_scheduling_of_household_appliances

 

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/16/3621/htm

 

Brit15

[RFS]

34 minutes ago, Kickstart said:

 

Difficult to do. With supply, distribution and metering all done by different organisations, a supplier can't really send a signal over the distribution grid to control things.

One reason why the idea of doing meter readings over the distribution network (which was feasible 30 odd years ago) was abandoned.

 

My Nightstor definitely receives a signal: it won't start charging until it gets it and stops charging when day rate starts. It's possible the signal is coming from the meter but it's not a smart meter, and I've had this system for over 30 years now. 

[billbedford]

23 hours ago, spikey said:

You know, I'd swear that when Windscale went online it was announced that electricity was soon going to be so cheap to produce that it wouldn't be worth metering.

 

People in the Highlands were told the same thing when the Hydro wanted their land to build dams. 

[Kickstart]

10 minutes ago, RFS said:

 

My Nightstor definitely receives a signal: it won't start charging until it gets it and stops charging when day rate starts. It's possible the signal is coming from the meter but it's not a smart meter, and I've had this system for over 30 years now. 

 

As I understand it they are connected to the "off peak" output from the meter, hence switched by the meter. However whether the meters time is correct for the intended E7 hours is a separate question! But as it will be measuring the night rate based on the same time it isn't really your problem

 

All the best

 

Katy

[billbedford]

On 03/01/2022 at 09:06, SamThomas said:

Nowadays it is a lot easier to match demand to production, especially with the contribution of wind power & solar (during the day) - these sources can effectively be turned on & off at very short notice which is not the case with other sources.

But the costs don't change if wind and solar over-produce, since the producers are recompensed for what the income they would have earned had the supply not been curtailed. 

 

On 03/01/2022 at 09:06, SamThomas said:

Demand will become more uniform with the prolification of EV's being recharged at night &/or weekends so there will be no/less incentive for the energy suppliers to encourage the use of off peak power ?

 

I will be very much easier to manage both supply and demand once the government is forced to stop subsiding these toy energy harvesters and invest is the only source of native medium term reliable energy we have, that is natural gas. 

[30801]

2 hours ago, Kickstart said:

How long that EV tariff can last I don't know, as I when I last looked up the wholesale prices that was below the night time wholesale prices. Plenty of electricity suppliers have already gone bust, and I doubt Octopus can continue with a loss making tariff for that long.

 

Octopus Go is now 7.5p & 30p

Intelligent Octopus is 5p & 24p but currently only works with Teslas. It opportunistically charges when the grid is cheapest and gets your car charged by a time of your choosing. You can override it and charge immediately at the day rate.

 

I average just under 15kWh per day for the car.

[AndrueC]

On 03/01/2022 at 10:02, Ron Ron Ron said:

…..I should add, that growing use of home electricity storage systems (presently that’s batteries) will allow consumers to increase their access to cheaper and even free electricity , even during “peak-price” periods..

And home BEV charging points can help with this. A BEV battery can supply an entire house for several hours. It's one of the relatively unsung advantages of a national BEV fleet. Most people with their own charging points won't come close to discharging their battery in normal use if they plug it in every day (and that's the sensible thing to do) so that allows most of the battery capacity to help smooth out demand.

[RFS]

1 hour ago, Kickstart said:

 

As I understand it they are connected to the "off peak" output from the meter, hence switched by the meter.

 

No it isn't - there's no separate wiring for off-peak! I know that for sure since a few years ago the meter developed a fault and the boiler was charging during the day. The GEC engineer explained then that the boiler gets a signal from the meter when it's off-peak.  

[30801]

20 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

And home BEV charging points can help with this. A BEV battery can supply an entire house for several hours. It's one of the relatively unsung advantages of a national BEV fleet.

 

Days in fact. However there's a small wrinkle that the standard for the CCS socket on virtually all new EVs in Europe doesn't include exporting. It's due in a year or two but for now only cars with Chademo can export.

[Zomboid]

21 minutes ago, RFS said:

 

No it isn't - there's no separate wiring for off-peak! I know that for sure since a few years ago the meter developed a fault and the boiler was charging during the day. The GEC engineer explained then that the boiler gets a signal from the meter when it's off-peak.  

I used to live in a place with E7, and that had a separate consumer unit for the storage and water heaters, which was only live for 7 hours over night. The switching in that instance would have been somewhere near the meter. I don't know how it worked, but I assume it wasn't connected to anything external as it was on from 2200-0500 for half the year, and 2300-0600 for the other half.

[30801]

I once had a girlfriend whose new flat was very cold. She'd tried to turn the storage heaters on and when they didn't immediately get hot turned them back off assuming they were broken.

I laughed at her for that and things became even more frosty.

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, billbedford said:

I will be very much easier to manage both supply and demand once the government is forced to stop subsiding these toy energy harvesters and invest is the only source of native medium term reliable energy we have, that is natural gas. 

I'm glad you're not in charge of energy policy then - I wouldn't define three years as medium-term, that'd barely get us to the next election...

 

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/gas/uk-natural-gas/ - The UK has less than three years of natural gas reserves left, at current consumption.

[APOLLO]

Around 1/3 of UK Natural Gas is imported via the Langeled pipeline from Norway's North Sea field

 

Real time, scroll down to bar graph.

 

https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/InstantaneousView/Index

 

If you have 45 minutes this is a very interesting video re the construction of the above. Of course Norway's gas will run out one day, 

 

 

Some LNG is imported (mainly from Qatar) to Milford Haven & Isle of Grain, also shown above.

 

Hence the "Demonisation" of natural gas - it's running out fast. And when the wind don't blow, gas takes up the load, but what when the gas runs out - more windmills won't hack it. So, as God knows, it's Nuclear or Coal or freeze.

 

Brit15

[Fat Controller]

30 minutes ago, 30801 said:

I once had a girlfriend whose new flat was very cold. She'd tried to turn the storage heaters on and when they didn't immediately get hot turned them back off assuming they were broken.

I laughed at her for that and things became even more frosty.

Potentially more serious was the daft error I made; I left some clothes on top of the night-storage heater, then forgot to move them before going to bed. At about 02:30, I was woken by the smell of scorching- luckily, I cleared them off the appliance before they actually started burning.

[Reorte]

9 minutes ago, Nick C said:

I'm glad you're not in charge of energy policy then - I wouldn't define three years as medium-term, that'd barely get us to the next election...

 

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/gas/uk-natural-gas/ - The UK has less than three years of natural gas reserves left, at current consumption.

 

How long has that been the case for? Resources like gas are a constant of exploring and exploiting, saying "we'll run out because we've only got three years known right now" is rather misleading.

 

That said I do believe the big move to gas for generation was short-sighted and foolish and isn't what we should be looking to for the future (I'm very much in the nuclear camp, whilst believing a lot more should be getting invested in fusion, an area which development seems to have increased quite a bit in the last few years).

[Nick C]

5 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

How long has that been the case for? Resources like gas are a constant of exploring and exploiting, saying "we'll run out because we've only got three years known right now" is rather misleading.

 

That said I do believe the big move to gas for generation was short-sighted and foolish and isn't what we should be looking to for the future (I'm very much in the nuclear camp, whilst believing a lot more should be getting invested in fusion, an area which development seems to have increased quite a bit in the last few years).

I'm sure there is more - that's based on proven reserves, but it's certainly not indefinite - even if we've got three times as much as we know about, that's still less than a decade's worth.

 

I'm with you on fusion - things are starting to get very interesting there. I'm also very much in the diversify camp - have a whole load of different sources so we're not reliant on one particular resource...

[30801]

11 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Potentially more serious was the daft error I made; I left some clothes on top of the night-storage heater, then forgot to move them before going to bed. At about 02:30, I was woken by the smell of scorching- luckily, I cleared them off the appliance before they actually started burning.

 

I've had a fuse blow on one and it kept on arcing. I woke to a very charred FCU in the wall but happily not a flat on fire.

[Ron Ron Ron]

31 minutes ago, Reorte said:

....That said I do believe the big move to gas for generation was short-sighted and foolish.....

 

Agreed.

If the huge amount of NG that's been used for electricity generation, had been ring fenced for domestic use only, how many tens of decades may it have lasted for?

Maybe another 100 years or more perhaps?

 

36 minutes ago, Reorte said:

......I'm very much in the nuclear camp, whilst believing a lot more should be getting invested in fusion......

 

There's hope.

They say that Fusion is only 30 years away.

Mind you, they said that in the 1960's, 1970's, 1990's and 2000's..........

 

 

 

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