Electricity "smart" meters

[maxb727]

Something I saw today at work, kind of shows a bit about smart meters too.

https://youtu.be/6S3mCgahOlc



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[Ian Ball]

Thank you!

 

[kay]

OK, dumb question time. The first of those videos is talking about the increase in often small renewal energy supplies, and goes on to talk about limiting the times at which energy can be exported to the network - presumably to the times of high demand. I can see some logic in that, in that you don't have to construct a means of storing surplus energy. But the final punchline is that this will enable us to increase the use of renewable energy, and I don't quite follow that step.

 

[mountainpenguin]

at the moment renewables or other generation capacity may be not allowed on the network due to the networks inability to cope with peak production.
ensuring that renewables are controllable means you can over provision and have closer to full coverage.

 

[Robert Scott]

Sorry to digress from smart meters, but about "renewables"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/20/orkney-northern-powerhouse-electricity-wind-waves-surplus-power-hydrogen-fuel-cell?CMP=share_btn_link

and not worrying about overloading the input to the National Grid by using that excess energy to provide energy stores.

 

[mountainpenguin]

Wow . . . I didn't realize that electric cars are (can be) so cheap to run.

Yeah they can be super cheap to run, I'm using the Octopus Go tariff and it's only 5p/KwH to charge between the hours of 00:30/04:30 which is insanely cheap. You do need a Smart meter though. I've just recently switched the Octopus and can definitely recommend them. Here's my referral link if you would like ?50 credit for switching (I also get ?50 off my bill) https://share.octopus.energy/sunny-rhino-720. You can also sign-up via this website too https://www.octopusenergyreferral.co/50-credit.

There's some great financial and environmental saving to be had with EVs as you can get your energy from 100% Green sources as well. The problem though is that the cars themselves are quite expensive so for the most part you're not usually saving because the monthly or initial outlay is more expensive but over a looong periood of time you will break even. EVs tend to be good for a lot more miles than ICE cars, Tesla's for instance are good for 500k+ miles and they are expected to announce soon their newer cars are good for 1m miles. They also require less services and less likely to go wrong as less moving parts as they're 'simpler'.

yep 100% on this though the price of cars is coming down. We are also octopus go customers though I am thinking of swapping to agile (1 10 minute thing with the smart meter) as we aren't driving much at the moment. We have had 1 ev for 3 years now. The leaf is a bit of a compromise and a bigger battery would be great but its super easy to drive and you really notice the lack of fumes around our house first thing.