Free electric heating for an hour a day Mon-Fri when you come home from work?

Krakkkers

The sessions are about relieving the load at certain times.

markin

Peak carbon is often 17:00-22:00, so you are using more if using at peak times, using the heatpumps would help off set some.

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=7-days&start=2023-11-20&&_k=gshlkx
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB



 

JSHarris

Bendo said:

This thread highlights exactly how stupid a concept these savings sessions actually are.

Rather than people saving energy,  its tempting people to use more energy as a whole through the peak.

Yes, it's the energy marketing equivalent of click bait, to get free advertising on forums like this one . . .

markin

Peak usage hit £2,586 a MWH last year, shifting 1GW from 5pm to 4pm saves money plus the cost of having plants on standby not making power but ready to ramp up if needed, An extra GWH at 4pm is easy and cheap any day of the week.

Bendo

Krakkkers said:

The sessions are about relieving the load at certain times.

Quite. But the sessions also encourage people to shift their load to the peak time to artificially inflate their baseline, which is an obvious, but clearly undesired side effect.

bagand96

Octopus have been pretty poor at getting notifications out this year (having been excellent last year).  Saving Sessions alerts have been sporadic at best on all channels - app push notification/WhatsApp/email and often quite late.  Can't speak for other suppliers.

For that reason alone you might want to run your hypothetical electric heater from a smart plug so you have control over its operation as you might not be at home when you find out a saving session is taking place.  So you might want to factor the cost of a smart plug into your savings, also considering whether you should/could run the electric heater from a smart plug.

MultiFuelBurner

bagand96 said:

Octopus have been pretty poor at getting notifications out this year (having been excellent last year).  Saving Sessions alerts have been sporadic at best on all channels - app push notification/WhatsApp/email and often quite late.  Can't speak for other suppliers.

For that reason alone you might want to run your hypothetical electric heater from a smart plug so you have control over its operation as you might not be at home when you find out a saving session is taking place.  So you might want to factor the cost of a smart plug into your savings, also considering whether you should/could run the electric heater from a smart plug.

You obviously missed the National Grid ESO DFS rhetoric for the events this year. 

They clearly stated they wanted to test "short notice" to gauge how many could participate and how much could be removed from demand given these short notices.

Bendo

bagand96 said:

Octopus have been pretty poor at getting notifications out this year (having been excellent last year).  Saving Sessions alerts have been sporadic at best on all channels - app push notification/WhatsApp/email and often quite late.  Can't speak for other suppliers.

For that reason alone you might want to run your hypothetical electric heater from a smart plug so you have control over its operation as you might not be at home when you find out a saving session is taking place.  So you might want to factor the cost of a smart plug into your savings, also considering whether you should/could run the electric heater from a smart plug.

No issues with the notifications coming via whatsapp, yes they come late but as MFB noted, thats by design.

Even better, you could run your device by Home Assistant automatically, the integration there knows when there is a session on so easy to automate. In theory I could run my space heating off its 6kW immersions, although out doesn't feel right to game the system that way and I'm not too bothered to set it up.

bagand96

MultiFuelBurner said:

bagand96 said:

Octopus have been pretty poor at getting notifications out this year (having been excellent last year).  Saving Sessions alerts have been sporadic at best on all channels - app push notification/WhatsApp/email and often quite late.  Can't speak for other suppliers.

For that reason alone you might want to run your hypothetical electric heater from a smart plug so you have control over its operation as you might not be at home when you find out a saving session is taking place.  So you might want to factor the cost of a smart plug into your savings, also considering whether you should/could run the electric heater from a smart plug.

You obviously missed the National Grid ESO DFS rhetoric for the events this year. 

They clearly stated they wanted to test "short notice" to gauge how many could participate and how much could be removed from demand given these short notices.

I'm aware of the short notice nature of some events this year, and by design in future a lot of DFS events will probably be short notice (flexible!)

In my experience though this year I'm finding out on the good old MSE forum well before Octopus notify. I understand they have a lot of customers and for short notice events emails and maybe push notifications may be a challenge. But they're also using a third party like WhatsApp which clearly has the bandwidth, unless the delay in proactively notifying is also part of the test design? 

MultiFuelBurner

bagand96 said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

bagand96 said:

Octopus have been pretty poor at getting notifications out this year (having been excellent last year).  Saving Sessions alerts have been sporadic at best on all channels - app push notification/WhatsApp/email and often quite late.  Can't speak for other suppliers.

For that reason alone you might want to run your hypothetical electric heater from a smart plug so you have control over its operation as you might not be at home when you find out a saving session is taking place.  So you might want to factor the cost of a smart plug into your savings, also considering whether you should/could run the electric heater from a smart plug.

You obviously missed the National Grid ESO DFS rhetoric for the events this year. 

They clearly stated they wanted to test "short notice" to gauge how many could participate and how much could be removed from demand given these short notices.

I'm aware of the short notice nature of some events this year, and by design in future a lot of DFS events will probably be short notice (flexible!)

In my experience though this year I'm finding out on the good old MSE forum well before Octopus notify. I understand they have a lot of customers and for short notice events emails and maybe push notifications may be a challenge. But they're also using a third party like WhatsApp which clearly has the bandwidth, unless the delay in proactively notifying is also part of the test design? 

There is nothing stopping you signing up to the National Grid ESO DFS alerts. That way you get to know at 8am on the day that something may be coming.

Octopus specifically said as well they would be sending out alerts at short notice (intentionally late)