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Octopus Energy Free Electricity
- Thread starter NewbieT
- Start date
Is this being related to different areas of the country? Looking at the ESO app to see grid generation percentages today the South of Scotland is 97% zero carbon and the North of Scotland is 99% zero carbon ... we're going to struggle to make much impact ... especially when we don't have any coal power stations here anymore. I suppose it gets shuffled around the country to some extent but looks like East Midlands, Yorkshire and the South of England have some opportunities to nibble away at the high carbon generation.
Yea, I think if we can use less up here, that frees up generation to be shipped where there is less wind. It also (longer term) can reduce peak grid usage, which means more efficient infrastructure if they can prove behaviour can be changed.
MrBadger
Badger out
This would appear to be the blip that they are targeting. I guess tomorrows one is too big to have any impact on and extract any meaningful data. Either that or some have got emails to say don't bother eating anything warm all day...
Carbon Intensity
National Grid ESO have developed a Regional Carbon Intensity forecast for the GB electricity system.
carbonintensity.org.uk
Its a social experiment, with a bit of a carrot for those that participate.
The long term aim of smart meters has always been demand side response (DSR), its something that has been coming since the introduction of smart meters. Try and influence electricity usage at the extremes of the grids capacity.
At the moment, I guess Octopus are trying to see if people will take the carrot (obviously not a big enough one for some) instead of having to hit with the stick.
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What I don't understand is whey they didn't set some powerline ethernet standards to allow a smart meter to talk to high consumption devices to communicate with the meter. Some standardisation around optional loads and comms could allow for chargers, HP's, batteries, even fridges and freezers to be controlled locally. Not saying turn them off, and all could be over ridden, but they could all be asked to chill their beans for ~30 mins to 2hr at a time if the grid needed it.
ATM its a cloud end interfacing problem, which people are only really approaching 1 eco system at a time (ie this cleaver idea works with powerwalls, this one with a single car charger platform). I think they missed a bit of a trick on this tbh.
Phones are insignificant power draw.
Our large use at that time is just the 3kw oven, move cooking outside peak and it's done.
Everything else of significant power draw - washing machine, tumbly, can be shifted to GO period
phil4
Member
While that would make sense, the whole system seems cludgy to the extreme. If we forget the whole v1/v2 issues, the Smart meters sometimes don't report back to the "central collector" and sometimes that doesn't feed to the Power co. The In Home Display, the thing that's supposed to motivate the end user, can't cope with variable rate tarriffs, so if you're on something like Go, you'll wake up to a very big bill every morning. And any targets or budgets you set on it, won't match your bill anyway.
You'd have needed someone like Amazon or Tesla to do it without government meddling to get something like what you want. Instead there's be the likes of Capita involved and so much bureaucracy and red tape, we're lucky it works at all.
It's just another demand-response system. Give people a financial nudge to move some loads occasionally. Likely to be more valuable in the long term as UK wind generation continues to increase.
I think I’m on for 15p of free electricity. Whoop whoop? National Grid might have to work a bit harder if they’re going to make this work.
Can we guess the pilot will show it is cheaper and easier to have industry do Demand Side Response.
Would be annoying if the ev charge point providers did this in future. Throttle their entire estate back by 10% and there’s not a lot you could do about it. The Ryanair of EV charging will do it.
Can we guess the pilot will show it is cheaper and easier to have industry do Demand Side Response.
Would be annoying if the ev charge point providers did this in future. Throttle their entire estate back by 10% and there’s not a lot you could do about it. The Ryanair of EV charging will do it.
MrBadger
Badger out
I appreciate that it was probably a very small group of people country wide, so as probably expected, no discernible impact.
I very much doubt we reached our target as it was a pretty small one, but we did try. Our target was 700Wh I think, and we probably achieved 900Wh which is still pretty high as I suspect heating was quite a bit of that, Usage same period last week was just over 100Wh, which would have skewed things. It certainly made other family members aware of the need to switch off lights, or not put the TV on if not needed. But didn't go as far as not cooking potatoes for tea, just not use the oven.
carbonintensity.org.uk
I very much doubt we reached our target as it was a pretty small one, but we did try. Our target was 700Wh I think, and we probably achieved 900Wh which is still pretty high as I suspect heating was quite a bit of that, Usage same period last week was just over 100Wh, which would have skewed things. It certainly made other family members aware of the need to switch off lights, or not put the TV on if not needed. But didn't go as far as not cooking potatoes for tea, just not use the oven.
Carbon Intensity
National Grid ESO have developed a Regional Carbon Intensity forecast for the GB electricity system.
carbonintensity.org.uk
Drew57
Active ember
....in hindsight an upturned plate of cold beans & the wife moving in with her sister probably wasn't worth it for a 0.93p saving.
Undecided_2
Member
This is the problem that I’ve noticed across the board. People look at the financial side rather than the behaviour change that the whole of society needs to make.
However, the government doesn’t help set priorities. Air travel is stupidly cheap compared to trains - Scotland to London via BA £100 - train £400. My company requires cheapest travel option.
Removing grants from EVs over a certain price. I needed a 300 mile range and as we know those are not £35k. Removing decent feed in tariffs and letting energy companies set their own. I’m still installing batteries and solar but it’s crap that when I support the grid with clean energy I’ve invested in I get pennies.
I
But paying VAT on clean energy solutions gets me…. At least make it attractive to invest!
I’m not one for subsidies, a free market man…
But paying VAT on clean energy solutions gets me…. At least make it attractive to invest!
Undecided_2
Member
MrBadger
Badger out
Wasn't it a saving on 28Wh used? Assuming you managed to sustain 14W!
Or are you thinking of the saving of only using 28Wh of electricity vs what you would ordinarily have used?
Unless I mis-understood the payout, but tbh, that wasn't what we were doing it for so I never thought too much of it - It wasn't until after the event that I paid any attention to what our goal was! I wasn't going to stop the rest of the family reheating a meal with 10 minutes to go. These behavioural changes need to be sustainable and not marriage ending...
Drew57
Active ember
@VanillaAir_UK, yesterday was very sunny where I live. Solar fills the house batteries for much of the year & the grid is hardly used through to the evening or frequently not at all so both usage and target are rather arbitrary.
We do actually take energy usage quite seriously and fill various battery powered and storage devices prior to (or during) the periods when we are exporting back to the grid (two cars, house batteries, immersion heater, 5L hot drinking water dispenser, hoover + electric sweeper, occasional carpet cleaner, lawnmower, strimmer, electric tools etc etc). And of course, during low generation periods these are charged using the Octopus low rate.
When I signed up I had hoped that Octopus would be finding periods where our own grid usage itself was traditionally higher and reminding us to look for reductions.... maybe the scheme will evolve to become more personalised but it's a start though.
We do actually take energy usage quite seriously and fill various battery powered and storage devices prior to (or during) the periods when we are exporting back to the grid (two cars, house batteries, immersion heater, 5L hot drinking water dispenser, hoover + electric sweeper, occasional carpet cleaner, lawnmower, strimmer, electric tools etc etc). And of course, during low generation periods these are charged using the Octopus low rate.
When I signed up I had hoped that Octopus would be finding periods where our own grid usage itself was traditionally higher and reminding us to look for reductions.... maybe the scheme will evolve to become more personalised but it's a start though.
phil4
Member
I totally agree, that people look at the cost/saving. But that's natural. I'm not particularly wasteful of electricity like perhaps some. Devices aren't left turned on if they're not used... motion sensors are used to turn lights off when no one using them, car is charged overnight etc. etc.
But I go back to my original point, if we want to flatten the peaks we need to look at why people do what they do. Why ovens turn on at ~5pm/6pm, and look at that.
I'd put money on it that all Octopus staff don't work odd shift patterns so that none of them are finishing work in the peak periods. But that's really what's needed, across the entire country. For example if I could work whenever I wanted, and things around me (clubs, friends etc) didn't sway me, I'd be quite happy with breakfast at 10am, lunch at 3pm and Dinner in the evening at 8-9pm But I start work at 9, and so need to eat before then (mainly as I've been awake and am starving).
And even then, there's only so much you can do. We're primarily as humans built around being active during daylight hours, and being asleep at night. Sure we push the fringes of that, but by and large that's where we are biologically. I doubt we can persuade a huge chunk of the population to work night shifts, and be nocturnal.
That's what we're pushing against. Anything else is really just asking people to use less, timing has nothing really to do with it.
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