Octopus Agile

greenbee

Telegraph_Sam said:

Comments in this thread are evidence of people using e.g. tumble driers when the energy costs are very low compared with situations where there is no incentive. Wind turbines spinning at max rpm are environmentally neutral whereas what is produced with the power generated can contribute to global warming -  if the oven or whatever is switched on.

I think you'll find most people using Agile aren't doing things they wouldn't normally do - they're just doing them at times that are more cost effective and therefore helping balance the grid. All the laundry and drying I did yesterday would have been done anyway at some point - before I was on Agile I wouldn't have bothered thinking about when other than to fit in with other things we're doing. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Telegraph_Sam said:

Comments in this thread are evidence of people using e.g. tumble driers when the energy costs are very low compared with situations where there is no incentive. Wind turbines spinning at max rpm are environmentally neutral whereas what is produced with the power generated can contribute to global warming -  if the oven or whatever is switched on.

It's not that costs are low, it's that costs are negative, excess energy is being generated and they need people to use it from the grid (rather than paying to turn off the generators).  That's when people use extra. 
When costs are just low, that's when people do things they needed to do at times they might not usually do them, i.e. just load shifting.  Which is the whole point of TOU tariffs.

Also that's … really not how global warming works.

northernstar007

if they really want to balance the grid and moving people on to TOU then lower the SC on par with a fix, its 1 of the main reasons i left agile

Telegraph_Sam

Out of respect for other Agile contributors it might be that this gets switched to another separate thread ..

For any given level of solar radiation there must be "energy" stored in the form of wind movements over the total surface of the earth, some locations obviously more pronounced than others. This energy does not have any effect on global warming. Global warming  comes in (only) when the energy is converted into kWh's used for running tumble dryers, a/c units, electric fires and the like. This is neither uniform over the earth's surface nor at set times.  Consumers are more likely to use high energy appliances when the cost per kWh is lower. Marginal consumption if you will. Total consumption will be higher the lower the price acc to economics textbooks. This is my thesis about the downside of plunge pricing.
[Think about the comparison between East India Co clipper sailing vessels and modern diesel container ships.]
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When I re-read this I can almost convince myself that I know what I am talking about 

Netexporter

The reason the planet is warming is because the incoming energy from the sun used to escape at roughly the same rate at  night. Since we started burning fossil fuel in large quantities we have created a blanket of CO2 and other greenhouse gases around the planet so the heat can't escape fast enough to maintain equilibrium. The actual heat produced from that burning, or from using renewable energy isn't the significant factor.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

For any given level of solar radiation there must be "energy" stored in the form of wind movements over the total surface of the earth, some locations obviously more pronounced than others. This energy does not have any effect on global warming. Global warming comes in (only) when the energy is converted into kWh's used for running tumble dryers, a/c units, electric fires and the like.

There's your error; the bit in bold is not true. Converting energy from one form to another does not increase the energy of the system.

Telegraph_Sam

I don't see that there is a conflict between what you say and what I have posted. One is a contributory factor to the other when you consider the total no of high energy appliances in operation world wide. And the effect of marginal pricing.

masonic

Sam, do you believe the sun only warms the earth when there are solar panels there to capture the energy? Or that burning gas only releases heat when done in a power station producing electricity?

In terms of the earth accumulating heat energy, the events that cause it are solar radiation passing into the atmosphere and energy being released through burning fuels on earth. Anything that happens downstream of that makes no difference.

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

I don't see that there is a conflict between what you say and what I have posted.

Which is why I'm not trying to explain further. If you can't see the difference, it's going to take more than a couple of forum posts to clear this up.

Fundamentally you're arguing against the First Law of Thermodynamics.

https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Thermodynamics

Telegraph_Sam

I fear some of these posts are coming through out of sequence ..

My point is simply that me running a tumble drier in a situation where the cost is low has got to be negative in environmental terms compared with a situation where I don't use it because the cost is higher.