Octopus - Octoplus Rewards (points/money off/free electricity)

Netexporter

I wouldn't worry about wear and tear for these events, there is only around 12 trial ones planned plus any live ones (as in the last one) - insignificant in the scale of the battery cycle life.

I'm coming round to the view that hammering your battery (at advantageous rates, of course) to get your ROI soonest is the way to go. There will be even better batteries available when you've paid off the original cost.

debitcardmayhem

Netexporter said:

I wouldn't worry about wear and tear for these events, there is only around 12 trial ones planned plus any live ones (as in the last one) - insignificant in the scale of the battery cycle life.

I'm coming round to the view that hammering your battery (at advantageous rates, of course) to get your ROI soonest is the way to go. There will be even better batteries available when you've paid off the original cost.

I have had my battery and inverter 4 weeks shy of a year, by june this year there were already better ones available. It’s like buying a future proof pc 

Qyburn

Netexporter said:

You can't turn all the gas generation off because the spinning plant is essential for frequency regulation. 

That's an interesting comment. I assume nuclear is too slow responding, and i guess there's not enough hydro. What do you reckon is the minimum percentage of CCGT for stability?

SuzeQStan

Netexporter said:

I wouldn't worry about wear and tear for these events, there is only around 12 trial ones planned plus any live ones (as in the last one) - insignificant in the scale of the battery cycle life.

I'm coming round to the view that hammering your battery (at advantageous rates, of course) to get your ROI soonest is the way to go. There will be even better batteries available when you've paid off the original cost.

I think you’re completely right @Netexporter .  

Decided Gonna throw everything I got at the next session - admittedly the standard inverter won’t let me export everything in 1-1.5hrs but at that rate of return it’s worth it anyway.

Netexporter

Qyburn said:

Netexporter said:

You can't turn all the gas generation off because the spinning plant is essential for frequency regulation. 

That's an interesting comment. I assume nuclear is too slow responding, and i guess there's not enough hydro. What do you reckon is the minimum percentage of CCGT for stability?

Nuclear only works efficiently at more-or-less full chat. If you modulate it you get a build-up of undesirable isotopes, as EDF, in France, are finding, to their cost.

The lowest CCGT output I've ever seen, on Gridwatch, is about 2GW. I assume that is units running at reduced output so they can be quickly cranked up if, say, a nuke suddenly went offline.

Wind turbines don't provide any inertia because they are decoupled from the grid by their inverters. Their frequency is just synchronised with whatever frequency the wider grid is at.

Qyburn

Netexporter said:

Nuclear only works efficiently at more-or-less full chat. If you modulate it you get a build-up of undesirable isotopes, as EDF, in France, are finding, to their cost.

I was really thinking short term thermal effects. Steam turbines can't be turned up or down too quickly or you get stress or damage due to things expanding or contracting beyond limits. The power station I was involved with bent a main shaft in that way, and that was one of the drivers for the monitoring system I was working on. But opinions seemed to differ, some people said that the hydros (no thermal issues) made a big difference to stability, but others reckoned that small adjustments by every single steam turbine were more significant.

This all pre-dated modern CCGT or inverter based generators. At that time every generator was grid synchronised and would respond on its own to frequency variations.

EssexHebridean

Looks like another saving session tomorrow 1630 - 1800. 

SuzeQStan

Forced export at the ready - just watched a Y@utub@ vid to make sure I was right on setting the battery on the app correct. V straightforward 🤞🏻

Sunny day predicted tmoz but we still
dont generate one drop 3.30pm onward as sun too low in sky so gonna charge the battery from grid 3:30-4:30 tomorrow in readiness for the session. (Thanks @QrizB)

Doing that top up charge as battery is 6.5wh (& std inverter) and reckon that usage from 3:30-4:30 could deplete it 10% & battery settings allow overall discharge to min of 10% -( unless anyone on here thinks it’s ok to go below that?) Anyway - without that top up charge I reckon there is a good chance of battery being depleted too soon during export session.

QrizB

SuzeQStan said:

Forced export at the ready - just watched a Y@utub@ vid to make sure I was right on setting the battery on the app correct. V straightforward 🤞🏻

Good luck, hope it works out!

TheBanker

MultiFuelBurner said:

TheBanker said:

QrizB said:

M25 said:

liviboy said:

free electricity

No such thing what they mean is they'll not charge you but someone else will pay it for you.

No, there really is such a thing as free electricity. There's even electricity where they pay you to use it.

You should read the Octopus Agile threads.

M25 said:

Double speak has always been in banking and it's now rife in the energy sector.

People posting confidently on topics they don't understand, however, had been around since the bulletin board days.

I think free electricity is a bit like the NHS. It's free at the point you use it, but ultimately we all pay for it somehow. 

No in this instance the free electricity is either given away free or we actually all have to pay to give it away 👍

I do hope this has been a knowledge learning exercise and you pass on your new found knowledge to others rather than incorrect information.

Yes, that's what I said. It's free at the point of use.

This electricity still costs money to generate, and still has to be paid for by 'the system'. Because it's not needed, 'the system' then has to either pay the generator extra to turn off, or encourage use of the surplus energy by giving it away for free. But ultimately 'the system' is still paying for this energy and we all pay for 'the system' through our electricity bills. I don't think there's any way to avoid excess generation, so giving it away makes perfect sense, but it's still costing us money collectively.