Energy prices, what's your plan?

That was (and still is) fine for storage heaters. But it would require a whole new meter everytime someone want to switch to a different time-of-use tariff. What if in 10 years time, those e7 hours may no longer be the lowest demand periods?

Actually, it feel nicer to run storage heaters using this ToU tariff: https://octopus.energy/cosy/

With smart meter, you can have 4 hours or 10 hours of cheap off peak. Or the supplier could even give more cheap off-peak time slots should the grid capacity allows. Or even a new price every half hour, close reflection of wholesale prices and sometimes even paying people to use:

 

I'm on board with smart meters because it enables a whole bunch of possibilities regarding pricing, interoperability with "smart" devices etc (in theory). As with everything, we need protections to stop corporations being greedy ******s.

 

The model of demand shaping you are laying out is a fantasy. The majority of people's working day starts in a 2 hour window between 8am and 10pm, it ends between 4pm and 6pm. You're asking half the workforce to not put the kettle on when they get up, not do their laundry after work, not watch TV in the evening and so on. It simply won't happen. Even if it did happen, the savings wouldn't be passed on to consumers because they never are. A far more likely structure would be a minimum tarif, then a peak time surcharge to increase provider's margins.

What is actually happening right now is that Smart Meters generate a legal loophole to force the poorest (and thus least profitable) onto the highest possible tarif, or cut them off entirely without the expense of going through the courts. It's a problem that needs legislating away, preferably both by banning any kind of remote change without a court order and forcing pre-payment meters to always be charged to the lowest possible tarif. Not that either will happen.

 

That's exactly what I have, real time telemetry Cheesecake!

 

Yup I have assorted clamps for those purposes like car charger etc.

 

Thanks for the meter & teleswitch info plus pics GH.
I didn't know they existed until last month...
A friend has new E7 powered more efficient storage heaters in her flat which were fine until one morning in the cold spell last month she woke up freezing!
It seems the teleswitch had died, so the E7 supply didn't kick in at 11.30pm as it should have.. Brrrrr

 

Problem is, the number of rates supported by this analogue (or digital, but not smart) meter is defined by the number of counters. There's usually only 2 counters for 2 rates. Octopus Cosy, for example, has 3 rates. Agile has hundreds of rates from -10p to 35p.

So yes, dual-rate tariff are solved problem. But it only imitates the energy market in a very crude way. Isn't flexible enough to offer enough variations.

Radio switching is interesting though. The digital e7 meter I had was over 5 min out of sync with GMT, so I was able to do morning kettle up until 7:35am. There were no radio module, it just slowly went out of sync. Time cannot be changed remotely.

I have the same for monitoring my solar production, running OpenEnergyMonitor EmonCMS. It worked great at a glance. But even with voltage measurement, it's not as accurate as data direct from the meter itself. I find over longer periods (days and above), there's around 10% difference due to inaccuracy when currents are low.

Now I've got Hildebrand display, this sends out MQTT message every 10s. 100% accurate and easy to automate from.

Demand shaping is already happening with likes of Octopus Agile or Intelligent. Or even DFS
Yes, not only I'm saying not to do laundry after work, "money saving expert" is also saying this for sake of nation's energy security.

As long as tariff during majority of time is decreased, it's a win. Current peak is 4-7pm, it is entirely possible to shift usage away from that time. I try to minimise usage during that time, but I can still manage a reduction of over 50% when called upon by DFS.


In the near future, build up a lot more wind power is prudent. They are unpredictable but it should no longer be about installing just enough, we need more than enough for once in ten year windless days (as example). The key is to be able to produce enough when conditions are unfavourable. So that cheap energy can be offered to masses of storage that is can be automated (eg. from EV's, home batteries, to grid scale storage)

In the long term, built up a good mix of nuclear, renewable and storage devices to remove expensive peaker plants. Enough nuclear capability to cover once in 50 or 100 year windless days, while storage devices (big and small) are to cover day to day, hour to hour demand variations.

As I always said, it's about getting flexible demand to meet unpredictable supply. Living off the land but use modern solutions to get through harsh times. Whereas today's mentality comes from industrial revolution, aka the start of human induced climate change, it is to adjust (expensive, finite, polluting) supply to meet uncontrolled demand.

 

And therein lies a rather critical flaw in the argument. That might work for you, it might indeed work for many people, but it isn't going to work for a majority.

There's a good reason that 4-7pm is a peak time: it's because that's when people get home from work or picking the kids up. It's when people want to use their electric kettles, dishwashers, washing machines, cookers, etc.

 

Cooking and kettle, yes, this will be hard to shift. I believe most of the peak is result of cooking dinner.

Non timing critical things such as dishwasher and washing machine should not be used during the peak time.

All I can say is that by having surge pricing, we will ensure people don't use high power non timing critical things at times when the grid is dirtiest and most expensive. The cheaper price at all other times should give a price cut on the final bill for most people due to less need to hedge bets by the providers.

Besides, surge pricing or multiple rates throughout the day is nothing new. It is widely accepted smart meters are an important stepping stone to a smart grid. UK is really late to the party with smart meter.

 

This is the part I don't think you get though. The dishwasher and washing machine might be non-critical to you. But that won't be the case for everyone, and especially not if you have a couple of children.

Many people are time poor as well as cash poor. They can't shift their peak demand to earlier in the day because they're at work. They can't shift it much later in the evening because they've got to get the kids washed and into bed. The cruel irony is that the ones who'd benefit the most are the ones who have the least flexibility.

This behaviour and pricing strategy is not going to shift because individuals change their habits, just like we're not going to solve climate change just because people stop using plastic carrier bags. Individuals should do whatever they can, but the problem is much much bigger than that. If peak demand shifted to another period in the day then energy companies would shift their pricing in accordance. It needs wide-ranging action from oligarchical corporations, governments, and regulators.

I made a similar point elsewhere about GPU pricing and the same rationale holds in this situation: you can't solve this problem by laying the fault at the feet of individuals who don't really have a choice.

 

I certainly hope people don't wash kids in their dishwasher or washing machine

Most of these devices have timers, none of it require monitoring during its wash cycle. In your example, the wash cycles can be run at ~9pm in time to get it out of machines before adults' bedtime. Or overnight and hang it up in the morning if have time.

I agree on individual level, problem is, the world has to change and remove reliance on fossil fuel. This sometimes mean embracing changes at individual level whenever possible.

I've outlined what I think need to be done from government/regulators/corporations to bring cheap renewables to everyone. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this.

The display connects to smart meter via zigbee and sends MQTT on your LAN with following info, electricity updated every 10s, gas every 30min:
Meter reading import and export (all time, year, month, week, today), actual cost (today), standing charge, unit cost, and most importantly for automation: current power draw.

The smart meter knows all those. They should be remotely set by your energy provider. The unit cost sensor in HA mirrors my Octopus Go tariff. I think it should also mirror Octopus Agile. If not, it's easy to get the data direct from Octopus via their API.

 

Against the safety advice of every fire service in the nation, that wouldn't be wise

 

I'm in two minds about that one, but it's likely that my tumble dryer is the biggest fire risk in my house, closely followed by a woman who leaves candles lit all over the shop and then the actual log burner. The washing machine and dishwasher feel a lot less flammable?

 

https://electricalcontractingnews.c...se-43-fires-a-week-in-england-research-finds/

Personally I'd sooner a few extra chunks of coal get thrown into the power station than have appliances running overnight, but that's just me

 

Surprised to see washing machine and tumble dryer on parity but I guess every load of washing gets washed and only a percentage of those go in the dryer?

Microwave must be user error