Octopus Agile

TroubledTarts

Missed all those high rates running on batteries from 4pm til 6-7am with the Aircon blasting away

silverwhistle

Negative from 09.30 to 16.00 today and going as low as -5.38 in Southern region! Unfortunately there's not much I can use as car is full, water is hot and there's no way I'm batch baking in this weather although lucky enough here to have sea breezes. Will do a washing machine clean cycle at high temperature but that's about it..

JerryW

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82050556#Comment_82050556

-5.5p the lowest for me today, and like you I've already done what I can. I have an airconditioning unit which has done sterling work but I do have a lot of conflicting thoughts about all this..

I am geared to saving electricity, not spending it like there is no tomorrow! Aren't we all? And there is tomorrow, and I totally fail to understand how this is all working. Who is in charge of the overall energy infrastructure? Why can't we husband our gains better? And achieve a more stable environment?

I worry that our generation capacity, and our consumption profile, are not in good hands.

silverwhistle

Yes, I try and do things which will need doing anyway at some stage and timing them to meet the exigencies of the grid. No driving around for hours just to get the car battery down! ;-) You may have seen the announcement in the last couple of days of major storage projects, including battery and pumped storage which address some of the issue.

I think we'll be OK as long as Reform don't get in and undermine the work that has been done. I could see them doing something stupid like banning electricity exports via the interconnectors without understanding why they exist.

Newbie_John

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82050726#Comment_82050726

If you have a solar system and get paid 15p kWh you will produce as much as it allows. When there is too much electricity in the grid you will still produce as it benefits you financially, but electricity companies need to find a way to get rid of it somehow for safety - and paying for that encourages others to use more.

Storage costs are also an issue, large battery infrastructure costs a lot of money and return is too small - not much interests, quite risky long term. Negative prices are still quite rare, if we tripled wind farms, solar - this would be happening more often and make the business more viable. England is flat country, so no chance for hydro storage. There are a lot of ideas - both ways charging cars, sand heaters, hydrogen, compressed/liquid air etc. but still in early days. And most importantly people at the top - look at all the windfarms development in US halted because new goverment prefers gas/petrol drilling. Who wants to invest in UK electricity storage if in 3 years new government would make it worthless.

It's all very tricky with no one solution for all - build more pylons - great, as long as it's far away from you - but in densely populated country that's impossible, tunnels too expensive.. Switch everyone to dynamic prices and people will go on streets 😅 - you see some people unhappiness related to smart meters.

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82050726#Comment_82050726

You asked: Who is in charge of the overall energy infrastructure?

The problem seems that no one is in overall charge, but rather there are lots of seemingly disparate organisations involved (DESNZ, NESO, DNO's, Ofgem, GB Energy, private energy generators etc), each with their own remit but not always linked up with others or with a view of the bigger picture.

An example of the above would be the use of local Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). These are container sized batteries that can be used to store electricity for later use to meet periods of high demand or to balance the grid. It would be great if a container-sized BESS could be installed alongside each local substation which could charge from excess local residential solar during the day in summer, or from the grid during periods of low demand in winter and then discharge to meet the power demands of local homes during the evening peak. A huge amount of electricity is wasted due to phase imbalance. Such local BESS systems could also be used to reduce waste due to phase imbalance which would pay for the upgrades over time (electricity networks totalled 22.87TWh of energy losses in 2024 and is forecast to increase to 56.43TWh by 2050. This has huge cost which is ultimately paid for by us, consumers) The only issue with this is that DNO's own and operate the substations, and they are not allowed to own or operate generating equipment because they are not regulated to do so.

Instead, BESS system operators seek permission to build and connected BESS systems to the grid at or near high voltage (HV) connection nodes, and often near inter-connectors, so they may sell their electricity into whichever market is willing to pay the most rather than benefitting the grid to make it more efficient and bring prices down.

I'm definitely not an expert on UK energy infrastructure, but I do know enough to know there are no easy solutions to the problems we face. I'm sure there are some things we could do to provide quick wins, but for the most part solutions are hugely expensive and not always very palatable.

Netexporter

I was listening to an interesting podcast from BloombergNEF on the history and future of grid scale battery storage in the Australian energy market.

Quite dense but Australia is seen as an indicator of the way electricity markets will evolve, worldwide, in the not too distant future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuEykUtQ6-A

EssexHebridean

I was out for the nice run of negatives yesterday, but MrEH was, and somehow managed to chomp his way through an impressive amount of electricity. I'm not complaining, mind you!

Annoyingly though, for the second week on the trot the Mini has lost its connection late last night - I picked up on it first thing and a simple "switch it off, and on again" has solved the issue, but I do wonder if I'll need to ask them to replace it. Anyone else finding issues?

QrizB

Annoyingly though, for the second week on the trot the Mini has lost its connection late last night - I picked up on it first thing and a simple "switch it off, and on again" has solved the issue, but I do wonder if I'll need to ask them to replace it. Anyone else finding issues?

You're not alone. I've had to reboot mine three times in the past week. I was wondering about posting about it on the forum but couldn't decide where to post 😆

Edit to add: checking my app, the OHM seems to have crashed again …

EssexHebridean

That sounds like some sort of glitch in the minis themselves maybe - I too was debating about where to post and then though "here'll do!" - glad I did now! I'll start a thread - let's see how many others we can find with the same issue.