What time is it?

[ericmark]

I was looking at electric tariffs, most seem to move to BST in the summer, the Economy 7 and 10 seemed to be the odd ones out. I set the time on Tapo smart sockets, for the tariff, and separate summer and winter, but only in 1 hour increments, on the zigbee no summer and winter but ½ hour increments, and as to when midday and midnight are, I would say they don't change with any time change, so always 12:00 and 00:00 UTC summer and winter, so 1 am and 1 pm BST, but others don't seem to agree, so I avoid using midday and midnight.

I suppose midnight is 00:00 UTC + 13 minutes due to being west of the Greenwich line. But this is being pedantic. But with solar power 4:45 am start and 21:30 finish so 7 hrs 15 minutes of non generation, so the mid-point is around 01:37 so 24 minutes out of being a midnight centre, but my panels are on South West facing roof, so that is easily explained.

So in BST my off-peak starts one hour earlier than in UTC, so in BST I never run out of battery, and in UTC I have a double change one less solar, and two the time change, so I will run out of battery far more often.

But I do not want to be ruled by the tariff, ensuring I don't run out of battery at super expensive times, i.e. 4 pm to 7 pm, so I have selected a tariff where payment for export exceeds off-peak tariff, so I do not need to monitor state of charge of the battery to ensure not too high when sun comes out, or does not run out before some high peak charge time.

So time matters, adding an hour or two (I know on the Falklands they added two hours height of summer (our winter)) in the main it is Union rules which causes the problem, as if you start work before 7 am or finish after 11 pm it is considered as shift work or night shift. I remember we wanted an early start on Friday working in Sizewell, so we had an early finish and could beat the traffic build up around Birmingham, but the Union rules resulted in we could not start before 7 am. But if the government changed the countries time, then we could start earlier.

But the cheap electric in the morning, (00:30 to 05:30) offset, means loads of battery reserve off-peak to sun coming up, but a low reserve sun set to off-peak starting.

I do remember the experiment of BST all year around, there was a problem in the North with school children walking to school in the dark. 9 am to 3 pm should be all daylight, and when I went to school it was 9 am to 4 pm, so not sure how that worked? I suppose school children walk slower in the morning to the evening? Always been that way "And then the school boy, with shinning morning face, crawling like a snail unwillingly to school" (As you like it).

But how do we deal with these changing times? Pun intended.

 

[denso13]

But how do we deal with these changing times? Pun intended.

I change my clocks, twice a year. Works for me.

 

[ericmark]

I change some, use UTC on the radio, so summer I have some at BST and some at the real time.

 

[SUNRAY]

I was looking at electric tariffs, most seem to move to BST in the summer, the Economy 7 and 10 seemed to be the odd ones out. I set the time on Tapo smart sockets, for the tariff, and separate summer and winter, but only in 1 hour increments, on the zigbee no summer and winter but ½ hour increments, and as to when midday and midnight are, I would say they don't change with any time change, so always 12:00 and 00:00 UTC summer and winter, so 1 am and 1 pm BST, but others don't seem to agree, so I avoid using midday and midnight.

I suppose midnight is 00:00 UTC + 13 minutes due to being west of the Greenwich line. But this is being pedantic. But with solar power 4:45 am start and 21:30 finish so 7 hrs 15 minutes of non generation, so the mid-point is around 01:37 so 24 minutes out of being a midnight centre, but my panels are on South West facing roof, so that is easily explained.

So in BST my off-peak starts one hour earlier than in UTC, so in BST I never run out of battery, and in UTC I have a double change one less solar, and two the time change, so I will run out of battery far more often.

But I do not want to be ruled by the tariff, ensuring I don't run out of battery at super expensive times, i.e. 4 pm to 7 pm, so I have selected a tariff where payment for export exceeds off-peak tariff, so I do not need to monitor state of charge of the battery to ensure not too high when sun comes out, or does not run out before some high peak charge time.

So time matters, adding an hour or two (I know on the Falklands they added two hours height of summer (our winter)) in the main it is Union rules which causes the problem, as if you start work before 7 am or finish after 11 pm it is considered as shift work or night shift. I remember we wanted an early start on Friday working in Sizewell, so we had an early finish and could beat the traffic build up around Birmingham, but the Union rules resulted in we could not start before 7 am. But if the government changed the countries time, then we could start earlier.

But the cheap electric in the morning, (00:30 to 05:30) offset, means loads of battery reserve off-peak to sun coming up, but a low reserve sun set to off-peak starting.

I do remember the experiment of BST all year around, there was a problem in the North with school children walking to school in the dark. 9 am to 3 pm should be all daylight, and when I went to school it was 9 am to 4 pm, so not sure how that worked? I suppose school children walk slower in the morning to the evening? Always been that way "And then the school boy, with shinning morning face, crawling like a snail unwillingly to school" (As you like it).

But how do we deal with these changing times? Pun intended.

The time?




16:46

 

[ericmark]

The time?
16:46

At the moment 16:04 UTC.

 

[Mottie]

 

[SUNRAY]

At the moment 16:04 UTC.

Ah you must have been listening to this since 16:00

 

[JohnW2]

I was looking at electric tariffs, most seem to move to BST in the summer, the Economy 7 and 10 seemed to be the odd ones out.

You must understand that they are very long-established historical tarrifs and that when they were introduced it was far from 'odd ,since it was the only sensible/practical option. In those days, switching between the tariffs was done by a local electromechanical time switch, and it would have cost a fortune to, twice per year, send out enough technicians to get every time switch 're-adjusted' on the ight day (or even in the right week).

Once things became 'electronic', anything/everything became possible

 

[JohnW2]

I suppose midnight is 00:00 UTC + 13 minutes due to being west of the Greenwich line. But this is being pedantic.

What do you mean by "midnight"?

 

[ericmark]

What do you mean by "midnight"?

Halfway through the night, mid-way between dusk and dawn, what else could it mean?

 

[JohnW2]

Halfway through the night, mid-way between dusk and dawn, what else could it mean?

Yes, but you miss the fact that I was being frivolous, in relation to what yiou described as 'pedantic'

I wouldn't really call it pedantic but, rather, 'wrong', since in terms of globally-accepted convention, we talk in terms of notional 'time zones', rather than 'astronomically-correct' precise times - the alternative would be chaos (as the railways discovered before time became 'standardised' throughout our country!).

 

[ericmark]

Yes agreed, we select a time zone in increments of an hour, so would not expect to be 15 minutes behind or in front of UTC, but in this country would expect midday or midnight to be 00:00 or 12:00 UTC not BST.

 

[JohnW2]

Yes agreed, we select a time zone in increments of an hour, so would not expect to be 15 minutes behind or in front of UTC, but in this country would expect midday or midnight to be 00:00 or 12:00 UTC not BST.ha

Quite - but only if you were talking about 'astronomical' midday/midnight - which I why I asked you what you meant by "midnight".

It is surely the case that, by convention, in Summer virtually everyone in this country regards 'midday' and 'midnight' to refer to 12:00 and 00:00 BST, wouldn't they? Again, that's why I was effectively asking whether you were talking about 'astronomical midnight' or 'conventional midnight' !

 

[HERTS P&D]

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