Demand Flexibility Service 2023 (and beyond!)

grahamm

Just a quick update to round off my bit of this thread in case anyone finds it in future.

I emailed my installers who said that 400KWh a month is probably about right for the current conditions and it should be a lot lower in summer, but they said I could try tweaking the temperature curve down by a couple of degrees and see if the house was still comfortable.

They weren't so sure about switching it off for an hour for the Demand Flexibility Scheme they said:

Heat pumps are designed to operate all the time adjusting their flow temp to the demand and conditions they are in so having the unit turn off twice a day for an hour each could cause it to ramp up at a much higher rate for longer periods of time.

Homely is a newish product on the market and is said to improve the communication of an older property with the heat pump ensuring optimisation. Check their website out. Which will probably save more in the long run.

I'm going to give Good Energy (my electricity providers) a call and see what they suggest.

QrizB

grahamm said:

They weren't so sure about switching it off for an hour for the Demand Flexibility Scheme they said:

Heat pumps are designed to operate all the time adjusting their flow temp to the demand and conditions they are in so having the unit turn off twice a day for an hour each could cause it to ramp up at a much higher rate for longer periods of time.

Even if they're correct, the £3 you'll earn for saving 1kWh by switching off for the hour is enough that you're likely to be better off overall.

If your heat pump has a COP of 3, and it uses 1kWh per hour when running, your house is losing 3kWh of heat each hour. Worst case your heat pump falls to a COP of 1 to heat up again after the switch off, using 3kWh of electricity to make up for the heat lost while it was off. That will cost less than £1 extra, so you're £2 better off.

Reed_Richards

I've only had a smart meter since August so all this is new to me.  I participated last week through the Loop Energy app and earned £2.08.  Now my supplier, E.on Next has sent me an invitation to participate in their scheme.  I vaguely remember that the terms of the Loop Energy participation was that I would not sign up with anyone else for the same event but presumably I could pick either for each new event?  Eon don't state in their email what their rewards are so I can't see if there is any financial advantage one way or the other.

grahamm

QrizB said:

Even if they're correct, the £3 you'll earn for saving 1kWh by switching off for the hour is enough that you're likely to be better off overall.

If your heat pump has a COP of 3, and it uses 1kWh per hour when running, your house is losing 3kWh of heat each hour. Worst case your heat pump falls to a COP of 1 to heat up again after the switch off, using 3kWh of electricity to make up for the heat lost while it was off. That will cost less than £1 extra, so you're £2 better off.

According to the installers, the COP was over 3, although I'm not sure how to find that figure (I have an lg therma v r32 monobloc controller)

According to Good Energy, my Unit rate per kWh is 29.36p and I think they said they pass on 85% of the DFS payment to the customer.

The problem is that I'm finding it hard to get comprehensible information about exactly how the Heat Pump operates and what's the best way to get it to work most efficiently, so it's hard to know if switching it off for an hour is actually going to benefit me.

MultiFuelBurner

grahamm said:

QrizB said:

Even if they're correct, the £3 you'll earn for saving 1kWh by switching off for the hour is enough that you're likely to be better off overall.

If your heat pump has a COP of 3, and it uses 1kWh per hour when running, your house is losing 3kWh of heat each hour. Worst case your heat pump falls to a COP of 1 to heat up again after the switch off, using 3kWh of electricity to make up for the heat lost while it was off. That will cost less than £1 extra, so you're £2 better off.

According to the installers, the COP was over 3, although I'm not sure how to find that figure (I have an lg therma v r32 monobloc controller)

According to Good Energy, my Unit rate per kWh is 29.36p and I think they said they pass on 85% of the DFS payment to the customer.

The problem is that I'm finding it hard to get comprehensible information about exactly how the Heat Pump operates and what's the best way to get it to work most efficiently, so it's hard to know if switching it off for an hour is actually going to benefit me.

Sounds like it's time for a science experiment 

Lay it out methodically what you would use in a day, try and chose two days that have very similar weather. Keep one day on all the time as usual or whatever you do and the other during 4-7pm turn off for an hour and then on again. Record the results.

TheElectricCow

Reed_Richards said:

I've only had a smart meter since August so all this is new to me.  I participated last week through the Loop Energy app and earned £2.08.  Now my supplier, E.on Next has sent me an invitation to participate in their scheme.  I vaguely remember that the terms of the Loop Energy participation was that I would not sign up with anyone else for the same event but presumably I could pick either for each new event?  Eon don't state in their email what their rewards are so I can't see if there is any financial advantage one way or the other.

According to this MSE article shared a few pages back, the rewards with Eon should be a little higher with them supposedly paying the full £3/kWh saved in these initial events (compared to £2.50 for loop).
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/cut-energy-demand-flexibility-service/

You will be able to pick who to go with for each event, and if you sign up to more than one provider for a session it should be the last one you sign up to that you take part with.

The Eon scheme will probably be the better offer financially, although last year their overall management of the scheme left a lot to be desired - at one stage they decided to change the rules for calculating customer rewards without saying anything until after the event, and potentially pocketing any extra money that may have otherwise been owed to the customers in the process.

grahamm

MultiFuelBurner said:

Sounds like it's time for a science experiment 

Lay it out methodically what you would use in a day, try and chose two days that have very similar weather. Keep one day on all the time as usual or whatever you do and the other during 4-7pm turn off for an hour and then on again. Record the results.

Do I need to include Apparatus, Method, Results and Conclusion too? (Very old memories of school science lessons! )

Anyway, nice suggestion, I'll see if I can sort this out, thanks.

MultiFuelBurner

grahamm said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Sounds like it's time for a science experiment 

Lay it out methodically what you would use in a day, try and chose two days that have very similar weather. Keep one day on all the time as usual or whatever you do and the other during 4-7pm turn off for an hour and then on again. Record the results.

Do I need to include Apparatus, Method, Results and Conclusion too? (Very old memories of school science lessons! )

Anyway, nice suggestion, I'll see if I can sort this out, thanks.

For a heat pump oh yes go the whole hog with some nice line or bar charts

Reed_Richards

grahamm said:

According to the installers, the COP was over 3, although I'm not sure how to find that figure (I have an lg therma v r32 monobloc controller)

According to Good Energy, my Unit rate per kWh is 29.36p and I think they said they pass on 85% of the DFS payment to the customer.

The problem is that I'm finding it hard to get comprehensible information about exactly how the Heat Pump operates and what's the best way to get it to work most efficiently, so it's hard to know if switching it off for an hour is actually going to benefit me.

That's the same model of heat pump that I have @grahamm , although mine is 3 years old now.  I understand it reasonably well and have managed to get a better manual/instructions than those supplied as paper copies with the heat pump.  If you have questions post them here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6240076/i-bought-a-heat-pump .   

grahamm

Reed_Richards said:

That's the same model of heat pump that I have @grahamm , although mine is 3 years old now.  I understand it reasonably well and have managed to get a better manual/instructions than those supplied as paper copies with the heat pump.  If you have questions post them here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6240076/i-bought-a-heat-pump .   

Thanks, I'll do that now.

I agree that the documentation is basically rubbish. When the installer handed me this thick book I was thinking "OMG what the hell is this?" only to find that only a few pages are in English and the rest of the book is the same thing, but in about 30 different languages!