Batteries and saving sessions

JKenH

I am just wondering, in term of impact on one’s electricity bill, whether battery ownership is impacting on making money from saving sessions?

Psychologically is it a challenge for those who take pride in achieving the absolutely lowest grid import possible to game the system by increasing consumption during the qualifying hours for the savings sessions? 

Is gaming the system ethical? For instance we switched off our oil CH yesterday and thoroughly warmed the house up with convector heaters. Over the first four sessions we saved enough to cover the previous month’s electricity bill (before the government bung).

I also posted this on the Energy thread as although there is some commonality of readership not all participate in both. 

1961Nick

Totally unethical Ken & you should be ashamed of yourself.... 

 

1961Nick

Seriously though, I've been using my ASHP during the day (still on 13.2p/kWh) so my batteries have been done by dinner time. This has inadvertently worked out well for the DFS baseline calculation. On days with savings sessions I've saved enough battery to get through the saving period without any import. 

mickyduck55

My batteries almost always cover me through the saving sessions so rarely any import from the grid.   So far I have made 70p... 

michaels

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

1961Nick

michaels said:

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

In that case I'd suggest you don't visit this site...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/266691/download

michaels

1961Nick said:

michaels said:

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

In that case I'd suggest you don't visit this site...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/266691/download

Very helpful. 

If payment is £3 per kwh saved then it unfortunately makes no sense for me to game as this is less than 10x the difference between my peak unit and off peak unit rates.....

1961Nick

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

michaels said:

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

In that case I'd suggest you don't visit this site...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/266691/download

Very helpful. 

If payment is £3 per kwh saved then it unfortunately makes no sense for me to game as this is less than 10x the difference between my peak unit and off peak unit rates.....

It's only working for me while I make the most of the last few days of my contract @13.2p/kWh. Running the heat pump with a COP of 4 costs around 3.5p/kWh of heat energy which is a lot cheaper than gas.

Petriix

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

michaels said:

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

In that case I'd suggest you don't visit this site...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/266691/download

Very helpful. 

If payment is £3 per kwh saved then it unfortunately makes no sense for me to game as this is less than 10x the difference between my peak unit and off peak unit rates.....

You're misunderstanding how the calculation works. The 'in day adjustment' is calculated over the three hours starting four hours before the saving session (1-4pm for a 5pm session).

All you have to do is maximise your usage in those 3 hours and you'll be credited with 'saving' the difference between that and your normal use during that 3 hour window (plus any savings you actually make in the session itself).

michaels

Petriix said:

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

michaels said:

I got told off for even suggesting that it might be useful to know how the baseline was calculated....

In that case I'd suggest you don't visit this site...

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/266691/download

Very helpful. 

If payment is £3 per kwh saved then it unfortunately makes no sense for me to game as this is less than 10x the difference between my peak unit and off peak unit rates.....

You're misunderstanding how the calculation works. The 'in day adjustment' is calculated over the three hours starting four hours before the saving session (1-4pm for a 5pm session).

All you have to do is maximise your usage in those 3 hours and you'll be credited with 'saving' the difference between that and your normal use during that 3 hour window (plus any savings you actually make in the session itself).

Thanks - missed that bit, had assumed that as my use is basically zero during all the hours in question that there would be no in day adjustment applicable and I would have to instead use peak units during the session window in the 10 days before each session and that due to averaging any saving would be one tenth of that usage.  If I can basically bump up the level just by using electricity in a three hour window then the maths looks like:

3 x 1kwh (shift in day adjustment up by 1kwh) would then allow a 1kwh session saving to be calculated - 3 x 45.5p is smaller than £3 (assuming that is what the utility is offering)

[Also as I could put the pre-use into the battery displacing night rate charging then it actually only costs 45.5 - 4.5 = 41p per unit to charge up.  Probably max in the three hour period would be 15kwh into battery so 5 x (3.00 - 1.23) profit per one hour session - are some of the sessions 2 hours long?]

EricMears

Petriix said:

The 'in day adjustment' is calculated over the three hours starting four hours before the saving session (1-4pm for a 5pm session).

All you have to do is maximise your usage in those 3 hours and you'll be credited with 'saving' the difference between that and your normal use during that 3 hour window (plus any savings you actually make in the session itself).

It's insane that a scheme intended to reduce the amount of energy used in a particular period could be so easily manipulated just by increasing consumption for a few hours before the period starts.

The 'basic' calculation of comparing the target period's use of power with the average of the same time slot on previous days is quite sensible but the 'patch' to identify days when that might be 'unfair' seems rather a weakness.