Smart Meters

QrizB

Alnat1 said:

@Deleted_User I believe you said you have solar but don't receive any payments for export, your choice but also your loss.

From their previous post they chose to self-install a system without a grid tie. 2kWp of solar plus 7kWh of battery. They paid £7k which seems a bit steep but we don't know the fulll details of their system.

It's a valid choice although not necessarily the most moneysaving one, as your post goes on to explain.

Alnat1

Another problem with being off grid is, if some part of your solar/battery system stops working you have no back up until you can source replacement parts. Might not be too bad in summer but not much fun for a week in the middle of winter.

t0rt0ise

Deleted_User said:

GingerTim said:

And then customers will just switch away to a cheaper provider.

HOPEFULLY (but the way things are going, not necessarily) competition will return. 

But the bargains that you're seeing now with load balancing attempts via smart meters WON'T last. They will still give people cheap energy in order to balance the load, but with hoards of customers all clamouring to snap up those bargains they'll very soon be in a situation where a 3p discount will be enough to get the desired result. 

If one company offers much lower rates for off-peak energy they'll attract all the people looking for cheap off-peak energy - creating high peak demand during those cheap slots. That will force them to put the price up to lower demand. 

I don't think lots of people will take TOU tariffs. Most people didn't chase the cheap tariffs when they were available and I can't see them changing their behaviour.

t0rt0ise

Deleted_User said:

t0rt0ise said:

Deleted_User said:

GingerTim said:

And then customers will just switch away to a cheaper provider.

HOPEFULLY (but the way things are going, not necessarily) competition will return. 

But the bargains that you're seeing now with load balancing attempts via smart meters WON'T last. They will still give people cheap energy in order to balance the load, but with hoards of customers all clamouring to snap up those bargains they'll very soon be in a situation where a 3p discount will be enough to get the desired result. 

If one company offers much lower rates for off-peak energy they'll attract all the people looking for cheap off-peak energy - creating high peak demand during those cheap slots. That will force them to put the price up to lower demand. 

I don't think lots of people will take TOU tariffs. Most people didn't chase the cheap tariffs when they were available and I can't see them changing their behaviour.

If you're right, Smart Meters will be a failure - they won't achieve their goal of levelling demand. 

I don't think the ultimate goal was ever to level demand. The government want us to simply reduce use which isn't working anyway. Levelling demand is a new idea and only some users need be involved for that.

GingerTim

Deleted_User said:

GingerTim said:

And then customers will just switch away to a cheaper provider.

HOPEFULLY (but the way things are going, not necessarily) competition will return. 

But the bargains that you're seeing now with load balancing attempts via smart meters WON'T last. They will still give people cheap energy in order to balance the load, but with hoards of customers all clamouring to snap up those bargains they'll very soon be in a situation where a 3p discount will be enough to get the desired result. 

If one company offers much lower rates for off-peak energy they'll attract all the people looking for cheap off-peak energy - creating high peak demand during those cheap slots. That will force them to put the price up to lower demand. 

This would only be correct - that there is a hard limit to the amount of cheaper energy - if you assume that the UK will never again increase its overall energy generation capacity and generate more supply.

QrizB

GingerTim said:

This would only be correct - that there is a hard limit to the amount of cheaper energy - if you assume that the UK will never again increase its overall energy generation capacity and generate more supply.

Meanwhile, we know there's about 20GW of CFD-contracted mostly-offshore-wind renewable electricity generation currently in the pipeline and the intention to add a further 10GW to that pipeline every year for the next few years.

I don't see there being any shortage of cheap surplus energy in the foreseeable future.

GingerTim

QrizB said:

GingerTim said:

This would only be correct - that there is a hard limit to the amount of cheaper energy - if you assume that the UK will never again increase its overall energy generation capacity and generate more supply.

Meanwhile, we know there's about 20GW of CFD-contracted mostly-offshore-wind renewable electricity generation currently in the pipeline and the intention to add a further 10GW to that pipeline every year for the next few years.

I don't see there being any shortage of cheap surplus energy in the foreseeable future.

Keep it coming!

70sbudgie

This winter will be a good test of whether enough people are willing to make the change. I'm hoping that around the end of November we'll start to hear about registration numbers for the Octopus Savings Sessions and the equivalent offered by Eon Next and Ovo (I think?). Then the acid test will probably be in January - will enough people manage to make enough reductions in use to avoid blackouts? Even if only some blackouts are avoided because of this demand side management, it will probably be considered a success (progress at the least). The trial National Grid did with Octopus must have been successful enough for the current, more widespread role out.

And once the concept has been shown to work with a wider uptake, there is nothing to say that everyone has to have the same cheap periods. A smart network (of which smart meters are only a part) gives the ability to adapt however it is required.

[Deleted User]

And once the concept has been shown to work with a wider uptake

An example of why people might like time-of-use tariffs. These were the prices for my DNO region earlier today. Yes, people are being paid to use surplus energy as it reduces the cost of wind farm constraint payments:

Alnat1

I made good use of those tariffs, battery filled, got a towel load washed and dried, washer on again for a 90C cleaning cycle and dishwasher on an intensive cycle (lower temps leaving a nasty niff recently) It's great modern appliances have timers.

Sometimes it's handy when your hubby gets up for work at 3.15am too, he did the washer to dryer switch