Electricity rebate

[Harry Bloomfield]

Who will believe electric comes from a green source if the price goes up? The government seems to want to stop us generating our own by saying you must pay same tax on fuel as a Diesel Engined Road Vehicle the red diesel can no longer be used in generators you must use DERV even when not a road vehicle, how does that work out? But don't need to pay if a rail road?

I wasn't aware of that, have you a link?

 

[flameport]

Using rebated fuels in vehicles and machines (Excise Notice 75)

Find out when you can use rebated diesel, biodiesel or kerosene in vehicles and other machinery.

www.gov.uk

Red diesel can be used for heat and power at non-commercial premises, but everyone else must now use the 'white' full tax diesel.

Prior to April 2022 red diesel could be used for commercial heating, commercial generators and plenty more.

 

[JohnW2]

Makes perfect sense to me. Ramping generation up and down is an expensive process, some things just cannot be ramped down quickly or easily at all, like nukes and wind - so more economical to give the spare away, or even bribe consumers to use it.

Everyone seems to be assuming that if negative-priced energy will always be used by people shifting demand from a higher-demand time to the very low one.

If you told me that, say, I would be paid 10p per kWh for all the electricity I used between, say, 2am and 4am, I think I might be tempted to switch on every high-powered load I could think of (without actually needing to!) during those hours in order to generate a tidy bit of 'income' every day, but without necessarily reducing my ('needed') consumption at any other time of day

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Using rebated fuels in vehicles and machines (Excise Notice 75)

Find out when you can use rebated diesel, biodiesel or kerosene in vehicles and other machinery.

www.gov.uk

Red diesel can be used for heat and power at non-commercial premises, but everyone else must now use the 'white' full tax diesel.

Prior to April 2022 red diesel could be used for commercial heating, commercial generators and plenty more.

Thanks! I got involved with Excise a few years ago, as to whether I could use red in my car, via a separate tank for the FBH/diesel heater/night heater/boiler system. My partner at the time had to be kept warm, so I made good use of the heater to pre-warm the car before she got in. I got involved in a series of emails with them at the time, which eventually ended with them conceding that I could legally use it, providing it used an obviously separate tank. Reading the link, it seems to suggest that use of red would no longer be legal, not that it makes much difference now anyway - I did away with the use of red long ago and replumbed it to use white from the main fuel tank.

 

[JohnW2]

If you told me that, say, I would be paid 10p per kWh for all the electricity I used between, say, 2am and 4am, I think I might be tempted to switch on every high-powered load I could think of (without actually needing to!) during those hours in order to generate a tidy bit of 'income' every day, but without necessarily reducing my ('needed') consumption at any other time of day

I've just done some very rough sums. I have a 3 x 60A supply and a voltage which is nearly always around 245V at low demand times of day - so potentially at least 44 kW. I also have more than enough circuits, and quite probably enough (usually almost never used) heaters etc. (! could always buy more cheap ones ) to create a 44 kW load (and also plenty of 13A extension leads,, so many of them could be used to heat the garden ) - and I could also run my one 'Plan B' electric shower continuously, and turn on my immersion and tumble dryer etc. at the right moment to get the desired total!

I have no idea as to 'how negative' these tariffs can go, but using the above figure that would amount to an income of about £4.40 per day (a.k.a about £1,600 per year - which would not to be sneezed at!

Kind Regards, John

 

[winston1]

Thanks! I got involved with Excise a few years ago, as to whether I could use red in my car, via a separate tank for the FBH/diesel heater/night heater/boiler system. My partner at the time had to be kept warm, so I made good use of the heater to pre-warm the car before she got in. I got involved in a series of emails with them at the time, which eventually ended with them conceding that I could legally use it, providing it used an obviously separate tank. Reading the link, it seems to suggest that use of red would no longer be legal, not that it makes much difference now anyway - I did away with the use of red long ago and replumbed it to use white from the main fuel tank.

Yes red went up drastically in price due to some EU rule. After Brexit it could come down again but pigs have not yet learnt to fly.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I've just done some very rough sums. I have a 3 x 60A supply and a voltage which is nearly always around 245V at low demand times of day - so potentially at least 44 kW. I also have more than enough circuits, and quite probably enough (usually almost never used) heaters etc. (! could always buy more cheap ones ) to create a 44 kW load (and also plenty of 13A extension leads,, so many of them could be used to heat the garden ) - and I could also run my one 'Plan B' electric shower continuously, and turn on my immersion and tumble dryer etc. at the right moment to get the desired total!

What I read somewhere, was that the times the rebates run for are so short and with little warning - that by the time you had that lot set up and turned on, the rebate period would be over.

 

[JohnW2]

What I read somewhere, was that the times the rebates run for are so short and with little warning - that by the time you had that lot set up and turned on, the rebate period would be over.

Yes, probably - and I was obviously only being silly/facetious in the extreme possibility 'I was talking about'. However, my point remains that having periods of zero/negative electricity cost do not necessarily result in as much reduction in peak demand as one might expect/hope - they might largely just increase total demand, without necessarily reducing peak demand all that much.

However, to be more serious, as I've said before there are very many people whose work/life serious restricts their ability to shift the pattern of their electricity usage during the day, so cannot shift much of their usage from high-demand times of day to low-demand times, even if the cost of the electricity at the latter times would be zero or even negative. I'm therefore not convinced that having periods of zero/negative electricity price would do all that much to shift demand away from currently peak-demand times.

I suspect that some people who are currently restricting their (total) usage because of cost might well add in more additional usage (without decreasing their usage at high-demand times) if they could do so at zero/negative cost.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

However, to be more serious, as I've said before there are very many people whose work/life serious restricts their ability to shift the pattern of their electricity usage during the day, so cannot shift much of their usage from high-demand times of day to low-demand times, even if the cost of the electricity at the latter times would be zero or even negative. I'm therefore not convinced that having periods of zero/negative electricity price would do all that much to shift demand away from currently peak-demand times.

With technology, some of the time shifting is possible. Fridges, freezers, washers, water heaters and similar, can have the intelligence built into them, to delay much of their operation until the cost makes it worthwhile. The built in intelligence could make the decision whether the wait is worthwhile, or things like freezers simply cannot wait any longer for a reduced cost. Such would make some difference to the peaks, but the peak loads will always be there.

 

[big-all]

is this not where battery trains 'busses and cars can come into it left connected to the grid as a storage capacity with smart connections working out if the battery has free capacity to accept peak charging/discharging before the next use cycle

 

[JohnW2]

With technology, some of the time shifting is possible. Fridges, freezers, washers, water heaters and similar, can have the intelligence built into them, to delay much of their operation until the cost makes it worthwhile. The built in intelligence could make the decision whether the wait is worthwhile, or things like freezers simply cannot wait any longer for a reduced cost. Such would make some difference to the peaks, but the peak loads will always be there.

All true, but I think you are talking, hypothetically, about the very long term. To the best of my knowledge, few (if any) such appliances currently exist and, even if/when they do become widely available, it will probably be a decade or two after that before they are widely deployed.

As I said, as things are, with the appliances which people currently have, many (most?) people have pretty limited opportunity to markedly shift the timing of their electricity usage.

There is also somewhat of a safety issue, since shifting of usage to low-demand times of day would, in many/most cases, involve having appliances running 'unattended' whilst occupants of the property were asleep. The greatest energy-guzzler (and probably greatest fire risk0 in most houses is probably the tumble dryer - and I would personally be less than totally comfortable having one running whilst I was asleep. In our case, we do nearly always manage to run ours at low-demand times (E7 'cheap rate') whilst we are still awake, but only because we have adopted a very nocturnal lifestyle- something that very few can do.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

is this not where battery trains 'busses and cars can come into it left connected to the grid as a storage capacity with smart connections working out if the battery has free capacity to accept peak charging/discharging before the next use cycle

Yep, and private cars too in time.

 

[JohnW2]

Yep, and private cars too in time.

Did he not already cover that? ...

is this not where battery trains 'busses and cars can come into it .....

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The greatest energy-guzzler (and probably greatest fire risk0 in most houses is probably the tumble dryer - and I would personally be less than totally comfortable having one running whilst I was asleep. In our case, we do nearly always manage to run ours at low-demand times (E7 'cheap rate') whilst we are still awake, but only because we have adopted a very nocturnal lifestyle- something that very few can do.

Yep, I have one, but it has never been used to dry. I use a much better, less costly system, which is also much less risky to leave running unattended.