Power Saver Events

[daveh]

I thought the best approach would be to take this as a hint to close down the house for an hour and go to the pub....
but then I ended spending much more than I'd saved!

(only joking)

What actually happens I that I just turn off the non-essential things, most vampires, lights radio, PC etc - including stopping the heating firing up intermittently - and seeing what transpires. I didn't turn the TV off, which would probably have saved most of all, nor the fridge-freezer.

Last time the saving was worth having, but I have a feeling that was a "special" day for some reason.

And tonight, the forecast is that my car will charge with 99% renewable energy. Oh joy

Yes, it all makes life just more complicated for not much real gain.


Arb.

That's cobblers, the grid never gets 99% of its electricity from renewables.

Besides, the doubling of my standing charge shows us the that the real cost of renewables is much higher than claimed.

My bit of the grid (Northern Scotland) almost always gets 100% of its electricity from renewable sources as long as the wind is blowing. This morning it was only just as it isn't that windy. Hydro was 28.8% and the rest wind. The high hydro percentage means wind generation was well below peak. Often it up as high as 98%. If it's very calm then Peterhead gas plant goes on and we may import from Southern Scotland where there is more gas plant and nuclear.

data from carbonintensity.org.uk

[OhNoNotimAgain]

That's cobblers, the grid never gets 99% of its electricity from renewables.

Besides, the doubling of my standing charge shows us the that the real cost of renewables is much higher than claimed.

Whose grid? Where? And when?

I've worked in, and on, places that are abso-fu-kin-lutely running at 100% renewables for most of the time (for big values of most!). Places scaled at the MW usage; running plant more demanding than an average commercial substation. It's partly because this stuff is so bloody successful that the technology is being scaled to national grid level. It's going to take a bit of communication skills to effectively explain what's going on to the lay folk who don't understand how it works. (I can't do that bit.. just the engineering part )

That's not what the NG data says.

[OhNoNotimAgain]

If that is the real rate no one will bother. I reduced my consumption by about 10 Kwhr over several events. In the context of >20,000 Kwhr annual consumption it is bugger all to me but if they want it to work they have to make it worth while.

20,000kWh pa?

Is that total gas and electric?

No, just electric. A HP in an old stone house and an EV doing 17,000 miles a year, mostly charged at home.

On a cold windless night in winter in a high pressure system the house is eating the best part of 20 kw as the 7 kw boost for the heat pump kicks in and the EV takes 7kw on top of the 5 or 6 for the heat pump itself. For the UK to convert to "so called" Green energy the network needs twice or thrice the capacity and generation capacity needs another 40 Gwhr.

Imagine 10m houses with the same consumption as me.

[OhNoNotimAgain]

Another event last night and i earned 593 points for saving 2.296 kWh.
The first event I got 1145 points for saving 3.69kWh.
It seems some kWh are more valuable than others.

[servodude]

Another event last night and i earned 593 points for saving 2.296 kWh.
The first event I got 1145 points for saving 3.69kWh.
It seems some kWh are more valuable than others.

Indeed
You might be interested to find out how electricity is priced

[funduffer]

20,000kWh pa?

Is that total gas and electric?

No, just electric. A HP in an old stone house and an EV doing 17,000 miles a year, mostly charged at home.

On a cold windless night in winter in a high pressure system the house is eating the best part of 20 kw as the 7 kw boost for the heat pump kicks in and the EV takes 7kw on top of the 5 or 6 for the heat pump itself. For the UK to convert to "so called" Green energy the network needs twice or thrice the capacity and generation capacity needs another 40 Gwhr.

Imagine 10m houses with the same consumption as me.

That is still a hell of a lot of leccy.

17,000m at 4m/kWh is 4250kWh for the EV.

That leaves 15750kWh for household usage and heating.

An average house uses about 3000kWh in electricity for non-heating applications.

That would leave about 12750kWh for heating. A HP with a modest COP of say 3, would mean you are generating nearly 40000 kWh in heat each year! I think average gas usage in the UK is about 12000kWh, so that is more than 3 times the heat for an average house.

So no, 10m 'green' houses would not have this electricity consumption!

Suggest insulation may help, or close off the 12-bedroomed west wing!

FD

[OhNoNotimAgain]

No, just electric. A HP in an old stone house and an EV doing 17,000 miles a year, mostly charged at home.

On a cold windless night in winter in a high pressure system the house is eating the best part of 20 kw as the 7 kw boost for the heat pump kicks in and the EV takes 7kw on top of the 5 or 6 for the heat pump itself. For the UK to convert to "so called" Green energy the network needs twice or thrice the capacity and generation capacity needs another 40 Gwhr.

Imagine 10m houses with the same consumption as me.

That is still a hell of a lot of leccy.

17,000m at 4m/kWh is 4250kWh for the EV.

That leaves 15750kWh for household usage and heating.

An average house uses about 3000kWh in electricity for non-heating applications.

That would leave about 12750kWh for heating. A HP with a modest COP of say 3, would mean you are generating nearly 40000 kWh in heat each year! I think average gas usage in the UK is about 12000kWh, so that is more than 3 times the heat for an average house.

So no, 10m 'green' houses would not have this electricity consumption!

Suggest insulation may help, or close off the 12-bedroomed west wing!

FD

Friends and neighbours with similar size houses, albeit not 300 yr old stone ones, have similar total fuels bills for oil and electricity, £4 to £5k/yr. So the energy consumption is not out of line.

The thing about HPs that is never mentioned on the tele is the 7kw boost that is needed to maintain temperature in the house whenever the outside temperature drops below about -1. Which, despite so called global warming, happens quite often.

More insulation is simply not feasible without demolition and rebuilding. Which wouldn't be allowed.

4m/kWh is too high for my EV, a Kona. Lifetime average over 35,000 miles is 3.4m/kWh which is 5,000 kWh. Although, actually a bit less because some is bought at service stations. Like most things advertised consumption does not match real world experience.

[ayshfm1]

I've done these, but because there was a problem with my electricity meter (which appears fixed as of a couple of days ago) I didn't really get a lot of benefit.

However I'm now ready for the next one!

Which for the benefit of those with batteries is extremely lucrative, you can export to the grid and be paid for that export, I saw one that was over £4 per KWH!

The caveat is care is needed to ensure that you are not already exporting at that time as they pay the difference. For example, if the saving session is between 17:00 and 18:00 and you normally export 2KWH and in the saving session you export 5KWH, they will pay for the additional 3KWH.

[DrFfybes]

Which for the benefit of those with batteries is extremely lucrative, you can export to the grid and be paid for that export, I saw one that was over £4 per KWH!

I didn't realise UK domestic installations could be set to export to the grid. I've certainly not seen that option on ours.

Paul

[ayshfm1]

It's not entirely a given, your DNO will give you an export number (or perhaps none), mine is 5KWH. My solar is controlled by the Tesla gateway, which when it was installed was told to never export more than 5KWH, to match what my DNO mandated.

Within the Tesla app there is an options to export Solar or export everything and that along with configuring the tariffs lets the gateway export from the battery if it deems it worth doing.

When a saver session is announced I bring the battery to full and the turn on export everything.

Other battery providers have similar mechanisms (notably solaredge and giv energy)

[scotview]

If so, have they had their reward points yet from their ESO?

Do you think that power saver events are a sensible way to run the National Grid ?

[Maroochydore]

If so, have they had their reward points yet from their ESO?

Seems to be some 'debate' about what are reward points worth. Surely the bigger 'reward', assuming you've cut your usage, will be the unit cost saved.
How does this compare to the 'reward' given (as a percentage if anyone knows)?

[scrumpyjack]

EON just paid me cash both times, £1.09 and £2.49 (13th and 17th Dec)

Don't know how much we had to cut, but I just flipped over to 100% battery during the saver periods

[scrumpyjack]

If so, have they had their reward points yet from their ESO?

Do you think that power saver events are a sensible way to run the National Grid ?

Yes if they contribute to alleviating demand at key periods, that is a good idea. But it probably needs to be on a much bigger scale. I guess we need to have more devices able to be controlled as to power use remotely, just as Ovo have a system for controlling when your EV charges (within certain parameters) so demand can be time shifted. eg If 20 million freezers could be remotely turned off for an hour occasionally, that might make a difference.

[ayshfm1]

That my biggest concern, they don't control how much is saved and thus is going to be tricky to extract predictable benefits. There are various ideas being floated, smart devices that can be controlled remotely by the utility and thus can't be switched off dynamically as the grid comes under pressure. Which is where switching off 20 millions freezers turns into something realistic.

The conspiracy nuts are frothing about such proposals.

However I think the answer could be in residential batteries, if the utilities can get enough batteries installed and get control of them so they can discharge them when they need more power then the peak consumption problem would go away.

[XFool]

Besides, the doubling of my standing charge shows us the that the real cost of renewables is much higher than claimed.

It shows us the real cost of having all those (now gone) companies selling "cheap energy"!

[usixm]

As renewables provide an ever greater percentage of the power in the UK, it will become ever more financially sensible for people to switch to a dynamic-pricing tariff (e.g. Octopus Agile). People will then schedule their consumption to avoid the expensive peaks.

There is no need for authoritarian schemes where the utility switches things off for you.

Just let the market sort it out.

[DrFfybes]

Do you think that power saver events are a sensible way to run the National Grid ?

Yes if they contribute to alleviating demand at key periods, that is a good idea. But it probably needs to be on a much bigger scale. I guess we need to have more devices able to be controlled as to power use remotely, just as Ovo have a system for controlling when your EV charges (within certain parameters) so demand can be time shifted. eg If 20 million freezers could be remotely turned off for an hour occasionally, that might make a difference.

Not just domestic batteries, also BEVs. People on here are already using their domestic equipment to do this - we always charge our batteries 2-4pm in winter as we pay a premium from 4-7pm, but I could probably look for an "export from battery" option on our setup. The govt have just removed VAT from adding batteries to an existing system as well to help promote the uptake.

At the moment the more affluent will benefit as they have the equipment, but as BEVs become the norm people will get home from work, plug their car in, and cook their tea from the residual power in the car before recharging overnight at lower demand.

Which is great, until the overnight car charging demand equals the peak teatime demand

Paul

[ayshfm1]

Octopus saving event today between 17:30 and 18:30. £2.25 + export rate, opt in and get those batteries discharging.

[scrumpyjack]

Have signed up to an eon one tomorrow 5.30 to 6.30