Electric boiler?

[JohnW2]

Since when has politics made sense?

Maybe if/when sensible politics translates to lots of votes? I would have thought that a government that brought about substantial reductions in fuelprices / energy costs would be very popular,hence pretty likely to get re-elected?

The big problem is lack of rotating mass. With an alternator connected to a large steam turbine, a sudden load will be taken up by the weight of the rotating mass, but with wind farms, solar and wave power, there is an inverter between the rotating mass if any, and the grid, so an over load will trip out the generator, and the supply fails like the domino effect. .... So we need both the fast reacting hydropower, and the plodding nuclear and other steam powered generators ....

Is not a substantial proportion of the 'rotating mass' in the generator itself, hence also present with 'hydropower'?

What it needs is for the smart meters, car EV chargers, and solar inverters to be linked to a central electricity generating board, able to switch off not essential services while retaining essential services ....

Not just that, but remote control of the timing of operation of all sorts of 'smart' appliances. That surely is the ultimate aim of the deployment of 'smart' meters, albeit not something that you or I are likely to see happening to much of an extent.

 

[JohnW2]

Most of those running OFGEM previously worked in the very same industry. Like most of these 'regulators' they have zero interest in doing anything that doesn't maintain the existing systems.

Cannot government intervene? As I've just written in response to eric, bringing about a substantial reduction in energy costs would presumably be one of the most vote-catching things that any government could do?

 

[ericmark]

Is not a substantial proportion of the 'rotating mass' in the generator itself, hence also present with 'hydropower'?

The generator needs to be directly connected to the grid, not through any inverter, so it depends on how many poles on the generator, looking at 6000 rpm, 3000 rpm, etc.

 

[JohnW2]

The generator needs to be directly connected to the grid, not through any inverter, so it depends on how many poles on the generator, looking at 6000 rpm, 3000 rpm, etc.

I understand that, but why should there be less 'rotating mass' when the generator is being rotated by a water-driven turbine than when it's being rotated by a stream-driven one?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

What it needs is for the smart meters, car EV chargers, and solar inverters to be linked to a central electricity generating board, able to switch off not essential services while retaining essential services, years ago we had this, where lights, and power were on different meters, and latter the Economy 7 with teleswitches so the CEGB could shed load, but my smart meter does not have two independent supplies, so the CEGB could only switch all or nothing, they can't just turn off non-essential load even if they want to.

Nail, head! That is exactly what is needed. At the moment, and for the most part - we try to match the supply to the demand. If instead, we could just generate, what we can generate, when we can generate it, and set demand to match it would be much cheaper. Instead, we attempt to set demand, by pricing, for at least some customers, like myself.

For instance, my cost per unit has been high for a while, so we have been holding back the washing. On Monday, I noticed the price would drop on Tuesday, and it was planned to do the washing, but we forgot. Today is still cheap, but not as cheap, so we are putting the washing on, rather than delay and perhaps forget to put in on again.

 

[ericmark]

I understand that, but why should there be less 'rotating mass' when the generator is being rotated by a water-driven turbine than when it's being rotated by a stream-driven one?

It will work the same if direct coupled, the wave power devices often not direct coupled, connects through an inverter.

 

[ericmark]

To select washing machine on at 00:30 to 05:30 as cheap rate, or using predicted rates can help, but I am talking about the supplier doing the switching on and off, there is a problem as my washing machine, dishwasher, and tumble drier will not auto restart if the supply is turned off/on but the charging of my batteries could be controlled by the supplier if my inverter was built to allow such a thing, same applies to storage heaters, and EV charging.

Some smart meters are 5 wire, and the meter does the switching, but my smart meter is only 4 wires, so there is no provision for me to set up use, so supplier can switch it on/off. Be it emergency switching, or timed switching, if we were offered a cheaper supply which we would need to accept would be switched off in times of high demand, then we could add selected items to this supply, like immersion heaters, but before this can happen, we need to meter that can do the switching.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Some smart meters are 5 wire, and the meter does the switching, but my smart meter is only 4 wires, so there is no provision for me to set up use, so supplier can switch it on/off. Be it emergency switching, or timed switching, if we were offered a cheaper supply which we would need to accept would be switched off in times of high demand, then we could add selected items to this supply, like immersion heaters, but before this can happen, we need to meter that can do the switching.

The great shame, is that smart meters could do so much more. A missed opportunity, to set levels of adjustable demand.

 

[JohnW2]

It will work the same if direct coupled, the wave power devices often not direct coupled, connects through an inverter.

Again, I realise that, but you were talking about "rotating mass" and said/implied that it would be much less with a water-driven turbine ('hydropower') than with a steam-driven turbine (gas, nuclear etc.) - which I still don't understand. Can you help me understand?

 

[JohnW2]

The great shame, is that smart meters could do so much more. A missed opportunity, to set levels of adjustable demand.

I'm sure that they will eventually come to do so - but almost certainly not to any extent within our lifetimes.

There will, of course, almost certainly be a lot of moaning on the part of people who believe that they should have the right to decide when all of their appliances etc. operate

 

[ericmark]

I was not considering direct drive hydropower, my comment is about having inverters, which stop generators over loading even for a very short time.

There will, of course, almost certainly be a lot of moaning on the part of people who believe that they should have the right to decide when all of their appliances etc. operate

This is a major problem, we want the incentive to use power when there is plenty, but if we had two supplies, there would be those who would have some method to swap between the two supplies.

We have already seen this with immersion heaters, where people have two, one connected to off-peak and one connected to peak. There are two schools of thought, one if one is willing to pay more, why should they not use peak to heat water, the other is, the whole reason for the off-peak, is to reduce peak use.

The power and lighting supplies in the early days of supplying power, included a legal bit where if you were caught using a lighting supply for power you could end up in court, but we still had these.

Even today

OK, for use down under, but we would soon see adaptors for UK sockets, likely meaning no earth.

I believe the French had a problem with Smart meters, unlike us, the French charged different rates depending on supply size, which could go down to 16 amps. With a 16 amp fuse, a short overload to 20 amps was not a problem, but with the smart meter, it sensed the over current and opened the breaker, so was tripping at 20 amps even for a short time, so the user needed to pay more for an uprated supply.

To use a twin supply, the 24/7 supply would need a current limit to stop people simply swapping supply when there is a shortage of power.

There would be nothing to stop having electric showers and the like on a switchable supply, but I would be rather upset if lathered up with soap when the power failed.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

This is a major problem, we want the incentive to use power when there is plenty, but if we had two supplies, there would be those who would have some method to swap between the two supplies.

The incentive needs to be there, but nothing to actually prevent use at peal demand. Rather, I was suggesting there ought to be a system for high-demand appliances to switch themselves on at times of low demand, determined by the supplier. You set the appliance up, to wait until told to run by the supplier...

There are two schools of thought, one if one is willing to pay more, why should they not use peak to heat water, the other is, the whole reason for the off-peak, is to reduce peak use.

That is the individual's choice, and remains their choice.

 

[ericmark]

My battery on a dull day like today lasts until 4 to 6 pm. Since on Octopus Go it does not matter when it runs out, if I moved to Octopus Argyle then it would matter, I would need the battery to last until 7 pm so would need to boost charge it on a dull day, by monitoring weather and altering when I charge the battery, I could with Argyle export 4 pm to 7 pm at a high rate, but it is simply too much faffing around, I just want to be able to forget about it. I may look out of interest, but not motivated to ensure running on battery 4 to 7 pm.

December and January are the worst months, soon we will be getting enough solar not to matter, but big question, why should I buy the battery, rather than the supply company buying the battery? Then no need for all these special tariffs.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

December and January are the worst months, soon we will be getting enough solar not to matter, but big question, why should I buy the battery, rather than the supply company buying the battery? Then no need for all these special tariffs.

Well, I suppose you get the benefit of being able to store the cheap power, pay back on what you export, so up to you to pay for the means of storage. I do wonder if people buying the batteries, factor in the cost of the batteries, wear and tear, and cost of replacing them?

Very local storage, greatly benefits the grid, in that it will help better support local loads, no need for the losses on long transmission lines.

 

[ericmark]

Battery warrantee is longer than the payback time. So I am OK, and it is in the entrance to a converter garage so not under the main house, and I would hope a garage can stand a fire for a reasonable time, now would like to see them moved outside, but had they been fitted a month earlier then would have likely gone in the loft, now banned, not due to batteries catching fire, but the problems fighting a house fire if there are batteries in the loft.