Making the news today....

[Johnsond]

31 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I have no idea who decides, it will probably be an AI algoritm, not so much to switch it off  but more to delay which households, on which phase, from the substation can start charging or heating. The aim is to spread the instantaneous load such that everyone gets the same time to charge or heat in the off peak period.

 

With wind, as at 19:45 26/12/22, providing half of UK electricity, 16GW worth, followed by nuclear from here and France doing 25% and gas gently providing 2.3GW  it may well be that the wind generators will need to be curtailed tonight when the demand drops and this unpredictability is the reason for wanting to shift loads to off peak periods. Plus of course the grid and distribution network has to cope too.

Wind energy  !!! The biggest most expensive stand alone mistake we are making. 

[openspaceman]

4 minutes ago, Johnsond said:

Wind energy  !!! The biggest most expensive stand alone mistake we are making. 

non sequitur but at least you didn't bring the curse into it, apart from that we of course differ. My gripe with all this RE is that we let the bankers decide, albeit indirectly, that we didn't do it ourselves.

[Johnsond]

2 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

non sequitur but at least you didn't bring the curse into it, apart from that we of course differ. My gripe with all this RE is that we let the bankers decide, albeit indirectly, that we didn't do it ourselves.

I may have griped about the last part of your post occasionally in the past 🤔

[openspaceman]

12 minutes ago, Johnsond said:

I may have griped about the last part of your post occasionally in the past 🤔

Yes and we agree about that, this russian atrocity has just proven that we can never be one big happy family and should have certain strategic industries that remain free of foreign control. Bearing in mind the french government totally own the  company in charge of building new nuclear power stations here and their pettiness over brexit and launching rubber boats here.

Edited December 26, 2022 by openspaceman

[scbk]

I don't have a smart meter, but I think it will get harder to remain on the grid without one. The thin end of the wedge is offering a slightly better rate if you have a smart meter.

Then once you have one, you get offered cheap electricity at times when there is plenty. The flip side of that is you pay a much higher price at times of peak demand.

 

I'm sure it's coming, and I think it's sad there will be a time when the little old lady is eating her dinner at 1am as she can't afford to cook it at a normal time.

[htb]

SIL in Suffolk is on a key meter (old style), display went tits up, contacted their supplier, it would take an engineer a month to come and change the meter. Options were you can have an old style prepayment meter but it will cost you £170 for this option or a new smart prepayment meter for free. They decided after grumbling a lot to have a  smart meter fitted and this was duly arranged for the 18th of December.

They got a call to say date was going to change to an earlier one, fitter arrived had a look at their meter went into van took out replacement meter an old style non smart one and fitted it. They got a free month of electricity and £35 for a failed planned meeting and £100 credit on meter for free. Very strange affair.

 

[trigger_andy]

1 hour ago, scbk said:

m sure it's coming, and I think it's sad there will be a time when the little old lady is eating her dinner at 1am as she can't afford to cook it at a normal time.

They don’t sleep much anyway and don’t have a job to get up for either. 🤣

[GarethM]

I can still never understand why the oap's are there at the shops at the crack of dawn. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by GarethM

[daveatdave]

1 hour ago, GarethM said:

I can still never understand why the oap's are there at the shops at the crack of dawn. 

it's because we get up early to go for a piss so we might as well go and get our news paper to read before breakfast 

[GarethM]

Is that so you can also have an afternoon snooze and be back again before closing time, scouring the shelves for the reduced whoopsies ?.