For those that believe ASHP and EV's are increasing demand

pete-20-11

mongoose2009 said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

But double at the right time overnight where there is plenty of energy availableand then utilising VTG vehicle to grid technology to store and then discharge at peak times.

Of course those that benefit first are those with money for EV's, battery storage, solar and ASHP but they are the Pioneer's here.

As long as we get the remaining 48% of people on smart meters the grid can be nicely balanced and everyone can play their part as we all join the electric party train.

Those that cannot see it, don't want to see it.

how does a smart meter help with load balancing ?

the grid control know the demand they have big screens with big numbers on it telling them

theyve had this since weve had a grid in 1938

Not just about the smart meter. Octopus have control of my home battery. They can charge it when they want and discharge it when they want. 

In return I get a tariff that allows me to sell to the grid for the same unit price as I could buy it. With a three hour peak rate where the sell/buy price is higher (again same price either way)

add to that everyone on intelligent EV tariffs where the supplier decides which hours to charge the car each night. 

There was a frequency dip a while back after an inter connector failed. Octopus managed to pump in a load of electricity from commercial battery farms to stop the grid from breaking / stop areas of the grid being disconnected to protect it. 

pete-20-11

https://x.com/dcelal/status/1738333029339160694?t=K1GKGiTvtVhmHfl4T1mrwA&s=09

Scot_39

Its really quite simple

Take the c1.3 million EV and hybrid cars - last years total - this ? - charging out of that red line and it would be lower.

Take out all those no longer burning mains gas or oil or LPG - but using an AS / GSHP or other form of electric heating - and that red line would be lower.

And does anyone know if that renewables line includes the c5% of demand met from biomass - as it busily spews out CO2 ?

doodling

Hi,

Netexporter said:

how does a smart meter help with load balancing ?

Because they'll get a more granular picture of demand and will be able to make adjustments at sub-station level to better utilise resources.

No.  It doesn't work like that.

There is virtually no control at a local substation level other than on/off and perhaps some small amount of increasingly ineffective voltage control (which is only used is extreme circumstances).  There is no way to better manage resources using smart meter data in a near real time way.

At a national grid level, they already have the data they need without smart meters.

There are four benefits of smart meters:
1. You dont need to employ so many meter readers to walk round the country.
2. They allow time of use tariffs which change customer behaviour so as to better manage resources.
3. They theoretically allow DNOs to identify locations where their network is deficient and they are failing to meet their legal obligations with respect to supply voltage.
4. They theoretically allow DNOs to identify where power cuts have occurred (no smart meter data ~= no power) but I have no idea how reliable they are for that purpose and they probably won't be as fast as the phone calls they will get from customers.

There is potentially a fifth benefit which is that they allow the DNO to know more about the energy flows in their local networks where historically there were very low levels of instrumentation (to understand where investment might be needed) but the right answer to that problem is to add instrumentation to local substations rather that try and guess what reality looks like from lots of individual smart meter readings.

I've missed off the contentious "easier to convert customers to pre-pay" benefit, feel free to include it if you want to.

Qyburn

Managing demand would be a big help. I can see how it can be done by scheduling EV charging, but can it be done for heat pumps? I had understood that they need to run pretty much 24/7 to be efficient. Recall the complaints in the US about electricity providers cutting back customers air conditioning during a heat wave. The UK equivalent would be turning off ASHPs during cold Winter days when there's no wind.

QrizB

Qyburn said:

Managing demand would be a big help. I can see how it can be done by scheduling EV charging, but can it be done for heat pumps? I had understood that they need to run pretty much 24/7 to be efficient.

That's only mostly true. Yes to get the best efficiency you want the lowest possible flow temperature, and one way to achieve that is to run them continuously. But a short interruption (3-4 hours, say) isn't going to have a huge hit to efficiency provided you've got the control system set up in anticipation of it. The loss of efficiency from avoiding heat during eg. the evening peak wouldn't necessarily result in a greater overall cost, assuming the sort of TOU tariff that this implies.

pete-20-11

Qyburn said:

Managing demand would be a big help. I can see how it can be done by scheduling EV charging, but can it be done for heat pumps? I had understood that they need to run pretty much 24/7 to be efficient. Recall the complaints in the US about electricity providers cutting back customers air conditioning during a heat wave. The UK equivalent would be turning off ASHPs during cold Winter days when there's no wind.

Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but my friend was paid when he let the electric company control his air con. He could opt out for that day if he wanted to, but otherwise get a bit of money back if he was happy to cool the place slightly less than usual. 

Qyburn

pete-20-11 said:

Qyburn said:

Managing demand would be a big help. I can see how it can be done by scheduling EV charging, but can it be done for heat pumps? I had understood that they need to run pretty much 24/7 to be efficient. Recall the complaints in the US about electricity providers cutting back customers air conditioning during a heat wave. The UK equivalent would be turning off ASHPs during cold Winter days when there's no wind.

Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but my friend was paid when he let the electric company control his air con. He could opt out for that day if he wanted to, but otherwise get a bit of money back if he was happy to cool the place slightly less than usual. 

That's probably the same thing.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/texas-power-grid-thermostats-heat-b1869989.html

Bearing in mind that the "grid" in the US is pretty flaky by our standards.

Netexporter

Bearing in mind that the "grid" in the US is pretty flaky by our standards.

Yes, actually a number of grids, although I think there are some attempts at joining things up.

Reed_Richards

Qyburn said:

Managing demand would be a big help. I can see how it can be done by scheduling EV charging, but can it be done for heat pumps? I had understood that they need to run pretty much 24/7 to be efficient. 

I give my heat pump 6 hours off between 22:30 and 04:30.  It's not fully off but I set back the room temperature by a few degrees so it would only come on during really cold weather.  I don't think that causes a significant hit in efficiency and I really don't want my house to be the same temperature 24/7.