Just had an email from British gas about their new Peaksave offer. From 11am on a Sunday to 4 pm they are encouraging people to cook the roast, do the dishwasher etc……by giving people half their energy cost back. Offer from this Sunday until the 24 th September…….only Sundays. Would have thought it was a-high demand time of the weekend?
I would imagine there might also then charge their cars at this time, causing quite a peak in usage
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Save the world by using more leccie?
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Well with wind and solar both going well we have had days when both were exporting - last Saturday I think octopus on one of their tariffs were paying people to use electricity. Meanwhile we couldn’t use everything we were producing so I don’t think I will go on that tariff 
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Not quite right! The grid was paying electric companies to use electric. I expect Octopus had a margin!
Their Flux tariff gives some certainty even if one misses out earning from using electric. The outgoing Agile rates are not quite as good as Flux. Not sure what winter rates will be like for export or import though. Flux rates will probably change every 3 months to reflex the price cap.
Phil
I turned my system on last week after powering it down for the Whitsun break. I was pleasantly surprised that it sounded really good in no time. Admittedly the weather has been warm with our lounge averaging 21.6C over the last month.
I feel inclined to turn it off in the summer if no desire for music and save the 90W it uses. However, I wonder whether turning on for a few hours every day risks stressing things. I note in the https://community.naimaudio.com/t/to-leave-naim-equipment-on-or-turn-off/4532 thread that @Richard.Dane turns the power amplifier off if not in use for a few days.
Any thoughts?
Phil
I turn mine off just on long breaks, or bad weather. Mine uses 65 Watts, and whilst that might come to £200 a year, you can probably half that due to the Solar panels, and therefore I am happy to pay that, and instead look at other areas to save.
Also, a couple of months ago, when I turned off the XPS, the internal fuse shattered, and was a little tricky to remove.
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The fuse shattering is a pain. I was trying to gauge whether others have experienced minimal drop in sound quality but had significant reliability issues they could associate with turning the boxes on and off.
My system copes well with power cuts, which are infrequently caused by the grid. Usually by electrical work at home. No surge issues requiring a step by step approach.
I know in the past I believed it took a long time to come on song again. However, it seems initially it sounds good followed by a drop off. With the new classic range standby seems ok. It is convenient and does not require leaving our chair. If the SQ and reliability are not such and issue then saving electricity makes sense.
Thanks
Phil
Any views on the GivEnergy all in one?
Mine is SolarEdge. I believe GiveEnergy is regarded here. My experience is that smart software is a good thing. SE still have work to do IMO. Solar forecasting is important to software optimisation, but hit or miss. I don’t know anything about other products. I expect SE to get better but it’s slow.
Phil
Another GadgetMan tip: "Environmentally friendly and free way to KILL WEEDS"
Found this out by mistake when I scortched the grass the other day and it didn’t grow back. Anyway, the tip is to slowly pore boiling water over weeds/grass, for example between flags, or pathing edges etc. The weeds effectively get boiled and die, and from what I am seeing, doesn’t grow back.
Of course for most of us energy is free, so the only cost is water. However you could just fill up your kettle from the hot tap with the cold water that comes out your tap first while you are waiting for the hot water to reach you.
A guy at work has one of the first installed since mid june. It works as expected, especially when you loose grid, switching over very quickly.
However, similar issues in terms of firmware to their other systems. He had a massive SOC the other day.
My AC 3 and 2 off 9.5Kwhr batteries work well though.
Time for a slightly different perspective on solar & battery.
Octopus Energy in the UK is running a pilot trial, offering 2 hours of free electricity when it expects there to be an excess of solar/renewable electricity.
The idea is that consumers will shift their demand away from peak periods to these mid-afternoon periods.
We are responding accordingly. Here’s what our electricity demand looked like 5 minutes ago:
At 14:00:
- the car charger switched on to full boost - 7.3kW
- the storage battery switched to maximum charge - 5kW
- the smart immersion heater switched on to boost - 2.5kW
- we switched on the dishwasher, the kitchen’s boiling water tap reservoir and the washing machine - 4.5kW
- It started raining (remember rain?), so the solar panels only generated 0.8kW
- The grid had to supply 18.5kW, which is a huge amount for one house.
Is this morally the right thing to do? I’m not sure. Thoughts welcome.
I can argue that we are only drawing “surplus, unwanted” renewable energy when wind turbines are being stopped due to lack of demand.
Furthermore, we will avoid using any grid power during the early evening peak, as we will run off the battery.
We will also avoid burning any gas to heat hot water until at least tomorrow.
Even so, I feel slightly uneasy about doing this and I’m not sure why.
Feedback welcome.
Best regards, BF
Yes, this is the right thing to do. Octopus want you to load shift which is exactly what you are doing.
Your actions will reduce demand at peak times which mean less fossil fuels (gas/coal) used to generate power.
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Exactly the right thing to do.
The grid operator has the tricky job of balancing load (inputs and outputs) in the grid. Now, both are variable, so it’s harder to do. One of the reasons why you can end up being paid to take energy out of the grid at times.
We took part in last winters “demand flexibility scheme” where we got paid to not use electricity at certain peak times. This seems to be the same sort of thing.
The more you can shift demand, the less expensive gas you need to burn. (Expensive in terms of both cost and carbon now).
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Well done with 18Kw. I only managed a max of 10Kw, home battery and car. But i was/am on holiday in italy!
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Yes, I would say you are doing the right thing, but I fully understand your concern. To help reduce that concern, you could make extra sure that you dont draw anything during the peak mid afternoon demand period.
Yesterday was certainly a washout on the south coast, we only produced 1kw.
This was the worst day since 12 January!
I wonder if it depends on which tariff you are on. Solar has been poor until yesterday. Having to taken on 15kWh in my 2-5am period. Still manage to export some. Panels
25.960
5.080
3.900
14.280
6.020
4.600
25.110. Yesterday
Exports
10.710
5.820
5.400
8.930
1.770
4.020
10.800
Phil
I really don’t think you should feel at all uneasy. Just crack on and take advantage. Any mixed views I have about this possibility are because (a) have shared supply of electricity on the farm and in laws opposed to smart meter (b) even if I could get a suitable tariff whenever the electricity has been free in this way or v low priced, because we have wind and solar generation here we usually have a surplus anyway so would not be able to take advantage
On the plus side the wind and solar has meant that from July to September this year the house was run effectively free with the car charging exceeding total
Imports of electricity. Not going so well in October so far with full days and little wind here…
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