Energy rationing

silverwhistle

QrizB said:

wrf12345 said:

Some third world countries have a choice of meters, the lower ampage ones have cheaper rates and lower s/cs, and are much cheaper to run as long as you have no serious electrical appliances - it would blow if you ran an electric shower, for instance.

@[Deleted User] has previously mentioned French tariffs that work like this- the more power you want to be able to pull from the grid, the more you pay for your connection. I wouldn't describe France as third-world.

See for example https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79402058/#Comment_79402058

Same in Italy: my flat had a 3kW supply (actual 3.3) but in 7 years I only managed to trip it a handful of times.

pensionpawn

[Deleted User] said:

pensionpawn said:

QrizB said:

pensionpawn said:

I ordered a Tesla Powerwall back in February to be installed by 1st Oct to store the excess from my solar panels and protect us against power cuts. Needless to say I was gutted when I was told in July that it will not be available until next April, at the earliest.

That sounds specifically like a Powerwall supply problem. Other makes of home battery storage are available.

Panels and a battery in each house folks is the answer and I just cannot fathom why planning laws have not been changed to mandate this.

The Coalition's planned changes to the Building Regs that would have required all new housing to be zero-carbon were cancelled by the Cameron government in 2015, to the acclaim of the housebuilders and most of the popular press.

How do you take down a geographic area without also knocking out all the micro generators in the same area? 

You don't, the embedded generation gets cut off too.

If your system is configured for islanding, you can keep power but this isn't a standard feature of domestic microgeneration and requires additional kit.

 If embedded generation is disconnected too that's quite counter productive!

It's partially for safety - if the power is turned off to the grid in your area, it needs to be kept dead to protect the people who might be coming to work on the equipment.

It's also for quality and control - your little PV system can't control voltage, frequency and suchlike for everyone in your area.  It wouldn't be much use if it stayed connected and then next door put the kettle on and blacked-out your house.  Or the other way around - if you turned something off, the voltage spiked, and then their television exploded. 

Most people didn't get islanding-capable equipment because it cost a lot more to install.

While an individual occupant is primarily concerned with their own equipment and their own usage, the network companies and the regulations must priorities the system as a whole over individual users.

I know that in the event of an unplanned power outage my panels will be forced to "shut down" effectively disconnecting them from the grid for the safety of power workers. I have no problem with that. However surely that risk isn't there in the event of power rationing? Looks like grid / micro-generator management needs to evolve in order to allow (excess local) power to be deposited into the grid at times of energy shortages. The DNO have to approve all panel / battery installations so they must have done some work in understanding how individual houses in a street aggregate together to the local substation (?) and back / beyond. Yes the island mode does bump up the cost, however I view it as paying for insurance on my whole investment.

[Deleted User]

The second set of risks still apply.  The local grid just wouldn't be stable if there was a random assortment of small PV scattered into the system.

The DNO have to be told about all panel installations, but they don't have to approve it, and they're often told months late and (in the bad old days) didn't really record what they had been told.  There has been plenty of work understanding aggregation (I know because I used to do it) but we have a grid that was designed for one-way power flow and nobody wants to pay to replace it all.  The equipment can't do it very well, the protection systems often can't cope with it at all, and the record keeping is laughable historically so there's no good data to work with.

70sbudgie

During the 2020 lockdown, the UK electricity demand dropped by 15-20%. 

Also, until grid scale batteries became a thing (about 6 years ago - it co-oincided with my mat leave, so I have a good time marker), electricity couldn't be stored. So NG had (and still have) several tools for tweaking the energy consumption. 

Demand side management contracts between businesses and DNOs have become popular and I imagine that now businesses are facing huge energy bills, they will become even more popular.

A few months ago, I took part in an Octopus / NG trial for domestic demand side management. https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/national-grid-eso-and-octopus-energy-launch-trial-unleash-demand-flexibility-winter

Octopus also had their "Winter workout" which rewarded customers for reducing their gas consumption.

Allowing the price cap to rise so much at the end of August (still summer and relatively low demand), is (imho) a large demand side management trial. We've been given 3 months to work out how to reduce our energy consumption. If you are worried about your bills and are currently trying to do something about it, you are part of the solution. (Well done, don't give up).

Read a few DNO websites and look at the innovation projects they've been doing over the last 8 years. Grid balancing doesn't just happen at the transmission (National Grid) level.

Also, earlier this year the goverment nationalised the TSO (transmission system operator - compulsory purchased it from NG), so they now have more direct control over grid balancing services. It was the TSO part of NG that issues the transmission grid balancing contracts. 

Any "rationing" will most likely be between 4pm and 7pm. Though, with more people taking advantage of time of use tariffs (E7 as well as the smart tariffs), peaks in demand have started appearing between midnight and 1am and in the mornings. 

And in the same way that Agile tariffs are published the day before, any planned outages will be announced sufficiently in advance to prepare. I imagine my employer will be asking us to work from home where possible.

Also, your smart meter just reads and sends data. Even if it could recieve an incoming signal, it has not switching capability. The bit of kit that disconnects you from the network is the cut out. The DNOs won't want to be doing more planned outages than they have to, because they are hard work. There are loads of mitigation measures in place before we get to planned blackouts.

We have come a long way since the 70s - not least privatisation of the electricity industry which gave the government the ability to heavily fine and even close down any of the electricity companies, who all operate under license.

MWT

Deleted_User said:

Most people didn't get islanding-capable equipment because it cost a lot more to install.

More, yes, a lot more, not so much these days.

It is a standard feature with the Tesla Powerwall 2 and its associated Gateway 2, and it is a feature appearing from other manufacturers as well now.

Between that, our solar PV and my EV equipped with V2L, I think we are about as prepared as we could be, but I do understand that it just isn't possible for everyone to do this.

FreeBear

70sbudgie said: Also, until grid scale batteries became a thing (about 6 years ago - it co-oincided with my mat leave, so I have a good time marker), electricity couldn't be stored.

Not quite true. We have had pumped storage hydroelectric plants (four of them) in the UK  since the 1960s. Admittedly, not as efficient as battery storage, and with a longer start up time. Still, they provide a valuable backup for the grid in times of stress.

[Deleted User]

MWT said:

Deleted_User said:

Most people didn't get islanding-capable equipment because it cost a lot more to install.

More, yes, a lot more, not so much these days.

It is a standard feature with the Tesla Powerwall 2 and its associated Gateway 2, and it is a feature appearing from other manufacturers as well now.

Between that, our solar PV and my EV equipped with V2L, I think we are about as prepared as we could be, but I do understand that it just isn't possible for everyone to do this.

Yes, it was a very past-tense bit of post.  It’s not too hard to do, and I would recommend anyone with a battery or an EV have islanding capability.

QrizB

70sbudgie said:

Also, your smart meter just reads and sends data. Even if it could recieve an incoming signal, it has not switching capability..

My only quibble with your post is this para.

Every UK smart meter includes a contactor and the necessary firmware to permit remote disconnection.

MWT

70sbudgie said:

Also, your smart meter just reads and sends data. Even if it could recieve an incoming signal,...

The smart meter has to receive an incoming request before any data is returned, it does not send metering data without a corresponding request...

70sbudgie

FreeBear said:

70sbudgie said: Also, until grid scale batteries became a thing (about 6 years ago - it co-oincided with my mat leave, so I have a good time marker), electricity couldn't be stored.

Not quite true. We have had pumped storage hydroelectric plants (four of them) in the UK  since the 1960s. Admittedly, not as efficient as battery storage, and with a longer start up time. Still, they provide a valuable backup for the grid in times of stress.

Apologies, you are correct. I don't know what total capacity they are.

A friend of mine visited Dinorwig about 10 years ago, and we had a conversation about how expensive it was to build and that we were unlikely to see anything like it built again. I was pleased to see an article last week that made me very wrong as it was about a new large pumped storage being built (though I can't remember where).

I also found it pleasing to see on Gridwatch that the pumped hydro have been much better utilised this year - the blue line really shows up. It has almost replaced the pink line of imports.