Smart Meters - good idea or not?

doodling

Hi,

Deleted_User said:

doodling said:

Hi,

There is some slight overselling of smart meters in the text below.

Dolor said:

I wish people would take a step back from the usual approach of 'how will it benefit me'?

Smart meters are but one part of what is known as a smart grid. A smart grid is necessary because our energy supply is no longer constant as was the case when we had coal-fired power stations. Today, National Grid has to manage the weather and time-dependent vagaries of renewable energy where the amount of electricity provided by solar and wind power can range from 60% to not a lot - as is the case at the moment:



You can see that nearly 60% of our electricity is coming from gas at 9.20am on an October morning.

Renewable energy cannot be turned on and off with ease. It makes sense to offer cheap energy when supply exceeds demand and vice versa. Making good decisions requires better consumer profiling. Better profiling means that the Grid (and more truthfully, we) are not paying to have a coal-fired power station sitting on idle on a 'just in case' basis.

This isn't the case, NG already has a very good idea of what electricity will be needed when and works very hard not to have excess generation capacity on line when it is not required.  Smart meters don't help because they tell you the past, scheduling electricity generation is all about the future.  Smart meters do not tell NG anything they don't already know; they already know what happened yesterday, and the same time last week and last year (and for the last 50 decades before that) and have models which estimate how that varies with temperature and wind speed amongst other things, smart meters do not help at all.

The Grid operators need to know how much energy is needed per year and when the energy is being used. Smart meters provide this granularity. Renewable energy brings with it voltage and frequency challenges. My grid voltage goes up by 5volts when the two local solar farms start to generate. This has to be managed and DNOs are now trialling pro-active grid voltage management at an area level by taking voltage data from smart meters.

Smart meters might help DNOs to better manage voltage on their LV distribution networks, I agree.  Distributed generation does not introduce frequency challenges, there simply isn't enough of it and a lot of it is passed through inverters which act differently to synchronous machines in any event.

Many countries now have both time-of-use and demand restricted tariffs. The latter require the consumer to sign up to a power limit (kW): the benefit of doing so is a much cheaper overall tariff. The consumer is helping the Grid operator and gets cheaper energy as a result.

This is what smart meters are all about, the change from electricity being provided "when required" to being provided "when the wind blows".  In order for that transition to take place, people need to be encouraged to only use electricity when it is available and smart meters enable that by enabling differential pricing.

In sum, the whole point of a smart grid is to better manage demand with ever-changing renewable supplies along with better grid frequency and voltage control, and earlier grid component fault detection. It is not just about the supplier being able to bill on actual meter readings.

Smart meters have no effect on frequency control and will never do so.  I agree that they might help the DNO with fault detection (but they don't generally have a problem with that without smart meters).  They are (or will become) a demand management tool which enables differential pricing to encourage the country to better match demand with the available electricity.

There is an entirely separate discussion about whether transitioning to an electricity supply which only works when the wind blows is a good idea but that isn't related to smart meters, smart meters could still have a place in an entirely nuclear (or fossil fuel) grid as anything which allows demand to be varied to suit NG make managing the grid easier.

A pretty decent summary, but a couple of points which are not quite true.

Distributed generation does introduce frequency challenges, precisely because of the point you mention. As it is all ‘hidden’ by inverters, there is no inertia contribution to the grid and therefore frequency changes caused by load mismatch are faster.  This can actually cause bigger problems where generators trip off if the frequency changes too fast (often in older implementations of G59 or RoCoF LoM protection).

No, distributed generation isn't introducing those challenges, it is primarily wind that is doing so and the vast majority of that doesn't count as distributed as it is connected at grid level.  I might agree that solar, which is distributed, also contributes to the problem at some times of the year but wind is the big one.

Smart meters (or anything else that could enable demand control) can play a part in frequency management by providing another tool by which mismatches between demand and generation can be prevented or corrected.

No, the timescale over which smart meters aggregate cost is too long to use as a frequency management tool.  If the grid loses 1GW of generation, that needs to be replaced within 30 seconds, it is no good dropping demand in 30 minutes when the next pricing period starts.  There may be benefit in enabling a better longer term response - pricing signals might allow things like LFDD to be withdrawn more quickly for example.

DNOs are also terrible at fault detection and condition monitoring on the low voltage network - there just isn’t enough measurement equipment at that level and smart meters could help massively in that regard.

I didn't say that DNOs were good at it.  There is already a highly developed network of fault monitoring systems deployed over the LV network, known as "customers".  I do see the benefit of automating the process though.😀

Your primary point is correct though, the major benefit of smart meters at this time is the enabling of ToU tariffs and the potential to create more active consumers rather than the traditional passive relationship between users and the system.

Indeed.  I do have some fundamental concerns about whether the interactive approach is the right way to run the grid but that is where politicians, supported by public consensus appears to be taking us.  I just have this feeling that that public consensus will fall apart the first time that people realise what that means on a still Thursday afternoon in January.

[Deleted User]

doodling said:

Hi,

Deleted_User said:

doodling said:

Hi,

There is some slight overselling of smart meters in the text below.

Dolor said:

I wish people would take a step back from the usual approach of 'how will it benefit me'?

Smart meters are but one part of what is known as a smart grid. A smart grid is necessary because our energy supply is no longer constant as was the case when we had coal-fired power stations. Today, National Grid has to manage the weather and time-dependent vagaries of renewable energy where the amount of electricity provided by solar and wind power can range from 60% to not a lot - as is the case at the moment:



You can see that nearly 60% of our electricity is coming from gas at 9.20am on an October morning.

Renewable energy cannot be turned on and off with ease. It makes sense to offer cheap energy when supply exceeds demand and vice versa. Making good decisions requires better consumer profiling. Better profiling means that the Grid (and more truthfully, we) are not paying to have a coal-fired power station sitting on idle on a 'just in case' basis.

This isn't the case, NG already has a very good idea of what electricity will be needed when and works very hard not to have excess generation capacity on line when it is not required.  Smart meters don't help because they tell you the past, scheduling electricity generation is all about the future.  Smart meters do not tell NG anything they don't already know; they already know what happened yesterday, and the same time last week and last year (and for the last 50 decades before that) and have models which estimate how that varies with temperature and wind speed amongst other things, smart meters do not help at all.

The Grid operators need to know how much energy is needed per year and when the energy is being used. Smart meters provide this granularity. Renewable energy brings with it voltage and frequency challenges. My grid voltage goes up by 5volts when the two local solar farms start to generate. This has to be managed and DNOs are now trialling pro-active grid voltage management at an area level by taking voltage data from smart meters.

Smart meters might help DNOs to better manage voltage on their LV distribution networks, I agree.  Distributed generation does not introduce frequency challenges, there simply isn't enough of it and a lot of it is passed through inverters which act differently to synchronous machines in any event.

Many countries now have both time-of-use and demand restricted tariffs. The latter require the consumer to sign up to a power limit (kW): the benefit of doing so is a much cheaper overall tariff. The consumer is helping the Grid operator and gets cheaper energy as a result.

This is what smart meters are all about, the change from electricity being provided "when required" to being provided "when the wind blows".  In order for that transition to take place, people need to be encouraged to only use electricity when it is available and smart meters enable that by enabling differential pricing.

In sum, the whole point of a smart grid is to better manage demand with ever-changing renewable supplies along with better grid frequency and voltage control, and earlier grid component fault detection. It is not just about the supplier being able to bill on actual meter readings.

Smart meters have no effect on frequency control and will never do so.  I agree that they might help the DNO with fault detection (but they don't generally have a problem with that without smart meters).  They are (or will become) a demand management tool which enables differential pricing to encourage the country to better match demand with the available electricity.

There is an entirely separate discussion about whether transitioning to an electricity supply which only works when the wind blows is a good idea but that isn't related to smart meters, smart meters could still have a place in an entirely nuclear (or fossil fuel) grid as anything which allows demand to be varied to suit NG make managing the grid easier.

A pretty decent summary, but a couple of points which are not quite true.

Distributed generation does introduce frequency challenges, precisely because of the point you mention. As it is all ‘hidden’ by inverters, there is no inertia contribution to the grid and therefore frequency changes caused by load mismatch are faster.  This can actually cause bigger problems where generators trip off if the frequency changes too fast (often in older implementations of G59 or RoCoF LoM protection).

No, distributed generation isn't introducing those challenges, it is primarily wind that is doing so and the vast majority of that doesn't count as distributed as it is connected at grid level.  I might agree that solar, which is distributed, also contributes to the problem at some times of the year but wind is the big one.

Smart meters (or anything else that could enable demand control) can play a part in frequency management by providing another tool by which mismatches between demand and generation can be prevented or corrected.

No, the timescale over which smart meters aggregate cost is too long to use as a frequency management tool.  If the grid loses 1GW of generation, that needs to be replaced within 30 seconds, it is no good dropping demand in 30 minutes when the next pricing period starts.  There may be benefit in enabling a better longer term response - pricing signals might allow things like LFDD to be withdrawn more quickly for example.

DNOs are also terrible at fault detection and condition monitoring on the low voltage network - there just isn’t enough measurement equipment at that level and smart meters could help massively in that regard.

I didn't say that DNOs were good at it.  There is already a highly developed network of fault monitoring systems deployed over the LV network, known as "customers".  I do see the benefit of automating the process though.😀

Your primary point is correct though, the major benefit of smart meters at this time is the enabling of ToU tariffs and the potential to create more active consumers rather than the traditional passive relationship between users and the system.

Indeed.  I do have some fundamental concerns about whether the interactive approach is the right way to run the grid but that is where politicians, supported by public consensus appears to be taking us.  I just have this feeling that that public consensus will fall apart the first time that people realise what that means on a still Thursday afternoon in January.

Anything connected to the distribution network is, by definition, distributed generation.  So that’s anything in England & Wales that connects at 132kV or below, and anything in Scotland that connects at 33kV or below.  Lack of inertia as conventional generation is replaced by distributed generation is one of the biggest challenges for the grid at the moment.  Perhaps you are thinking of embedded generation, which is generation ‘behind the meter’ at industrial, commercial, or domestic premises.

I also wasn’t suggesting using the 30 minute aggregation for balancing, rather the functions for peak chopping or their capability to integrate with controllable chargers and such like.  You’re right though, using smart meters for primary or secondary response is unlikely.

I don’t think there’s any stopping the interactive grid now, the question will be how much are people willing to give up their control of the interactions to algorithms (I expect less than many will hope).

doodling

Hi,

I take the point about grid vs. distributed vs. embedded generation.  I assume that all the big wind farms (500MW+) are connected at grid level, but that still leaves a lot of smaller farms connected at distribution level.

The point remains that it isn't where it is connected that is the problem, it is what it is that matters.   The big thing that is causing the inertia problem is wind, with solar presenting the same issue at times.

I don't have enough technical detail to work out whether interconnectors present an inertia problem.- in theory the modern inverters found at the end of recently constructed interconnectors could mimic inertia if they weren't running at maximum power but I have no idea whether they sell that as a service - I suspect it would interfere with their energy trading role.

Chrysalis

Freebird53 said:

QrizB said:

Sorry, I thought you were asking how much Octopus were paying per kWh. I have no idea how much Chrysalis personally was paid during the plunge pricing period,

No probs, i am always on the lookout for something that will save me money!

I never did the maths and it wont have been a significant amount of money they paid me, but the key thing is it saved me money.   Plus the hours around that where I was paying were still very low rates that day. 

Chrysalis

@Freebird53

Will post some pictures for you, my today and tomorrow electric unit costs for different time of day on my smart meter tariff.  I only pay the EPG rate at peak times, and less other times.

k_man

For completeness, not all days are like that, but when they are, a bit of load shifting can increase savings.

ETA @Chrysalis, I know you know this, was more for benefit of non Agile users

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

Today my gas (tracker, Yorkshire) is 4.45p/kWh, and my Agile (elec) is below, not sure why i have a random 6.30p/kWh at 3pm, lol

00:00 - 00:30	22.28
00:30 - 01:00	20.37
01:00 - 01:30	18.48
01:30 - 02:00	21.86
02:00 - 02:30	22.85
02:30 - 03:00	16.13
03:00 - 03:30	16.23
03:30 - 04:00	14.70
04:00 - 04:30	19.95
04:30 - 05:00	18.90
05:00 - 05:30	18.14
05:30 - 06:00	28.56
06:00 - 06:30	16.80
06:30 - 07:00	31.42
07:00 - 07:30	19.34
07:30 - 08:00	33.03
08:00 - 08:30	32.55
08:30 - 09:00	25.68
09:00 - 09:30	29.40
09:30 - 10:00	19.49
10:00 - 10:30	24.36
10:30 - 11:00	19.55
11:00 - 11:30	19.78
11:30 - 12:00	19.34
12:00 - 12:30	20.54
12:30 - 13:00	19.34
13:00 - 13:30	19.76
13:30 - 14:00	18.69
14:00 - 14:30	19.32
14:30 - 15:00	13.65
15:00 - 15:30	6.30
15:30 - 16:00	16.80
16:00 - 16:30	33.03
16:30 - 17:00	33.03
17:00 - 17:30	33.03
17:30 - 18:00	33.03
18:00 - 18:30	33.03
18:30 - 19:00	37.15
19:00 - 19:30	33.03
19:30 - 20:00	23.31
20:00 - 20:30	31.94
20:30 - 21:00	19.34
21:00 - 21:30	28.56
21:30 - 22:00	19.34
22:00 - 22:30	22.76
22:30 - 23:00	19.34