National Grid DFS

[tazdevil]

What's the point of this scheme and how does it work?

People use electricity because they need to so I assume this is just pushing demand peaks into troughs to flatten the demand? But how does it work? Is it that it takes the average of what you normally use for the period and gives you a percentage rebate if you use less? OK so that can be played by pushing a lot of demand into the period when the scheme isn't operating and switching everything off when it is So who funds these rebates, people without smart meters

[cojak]

I'll be busy putting the kettle on and having a shower at that time.

(Says Shell Energy customer...)

[SueEllen]

If you look at the energy dashboards e.g. https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live that's exactly what it does.

If you ever were on economy 7 or have an electric car that's why overnight tariffs are cheaper.

[ladymuck]

Ah right so I just tell my clients that I now work between midnight and 0600 when the electricity is cheaper?

[AtW]

Ah right so I just tell my clients that I now work between midnight and 0600 when the electricity is cheaper?

No, you should just be on battery power during peaks - peak demand is reason for high costs, every household should be legally mandated to have at least 2-3 hours worth of battery power, not those ******* pumps

[vetran]

What they should have done is fit smart meters with controllable outlets (could be RF or IR) so they could offer economy 7007 for charging batteries, storage heaters and water heating overnight at the generators discretion. It was suggested decades ago by clever people.

So 1am they can switch on EV charging, storage heaters , under floor heating and hot water heating intermittently undercutting gas and allowing them to run slow start up power stations like nuclear at full capacity saving coal & oil power.

They could also enable switching solar in feed to grid as needed.

Instead they are just asking everyone to not make a coffee at 4pm.

[Protagoras]

So 1am they can switch on EV charging, storage heaters , under floor heating and hot water heating intermittently undercutting gas and allowing them to run slow start up power stations like nuclear at full capacity saving coal & oil power.

Nuclear runs as base load. Nuclear generators' bids are such that the plant is chosen to run 24*7. No nuclear operator wants to be 'shifting' their plant. The outturn of this is very clear from the stacked charts on sites such as gridwatch.co.uk. There is simply not enough nuclear generation to have any spare run up.

The market price is essentially set by the bid price of the marginal generator in each half-hour period. That the marginal genset needs to recover its fixed costs over a shorter period tends to drive a higher bid price. Also, it may have limited capacity in terms of total MWh available.

The economics are further challenged by network constraints which mean that that sometimes lower bid plant is turned off and higher bid plant is required.

GB Half Hourly Day-Ahead Auction Prices are available on the Nordpool website, amongst others. Will be interesting to see the outturn DFS effect when prices are settled.

[vetran]

Nuclear runs as base load. Nuclear generators' bids are such that the plant is chosen to run 24*7. No nuclear operator wants to be 'shifting' their plant. The outturn of this is very clear from the stacked charts on sites such as gridwatch.co.uk. There is simply not enough nuclear generation to have any spare run up.

The market price is essentially set by the bid price of the marginal generator in each half-hour period. That the marginal genset needs to recover its fixed costs over a shorter period tends to drive a higher bid price. Also, it may have limited capacity in terms of total MWh available.

The economics are further challenged by network constraints which mean that that sometimes lower bid plant is turned off and higher bid plant is required.

GB Half Hourly Day-Ahead Auction Prices are available on the Nordpool website, amongst others. Will be interesting to see the outturn DFS effect when prices are settled.

But if we could create a more stable load then nuclear would be cheaper, more green etc so we would use it more? That was where I was at.

[Protagoras]

But if we could create a more stable load then nuclear would be cheaper, more green etc so we would use it more? That was where I was at.

We were once told that nuclear power would be so cheap, that metering usage would not be required! Now we have a hugely expensive 'smart' metering system, the benefits of which are not really apparent, and government underwriting of the future nuclear energy sales price.

The problem with ‘unreliable’ generation is that replacement plant needs to be held in reserve and this is expensive. We need something to replace wind generation at time of light winds; this evening that is coal and hydro.

We need efficient energy storage to store energy when it’s cheap and provide it when it when it’s more expensive. This is not a new problem. I think that at the moment the only technology that works at scale for this in terms of electricity is pumped storage hydro and that’s old technology.

We should be focussing on reducing demand, not just increasing supply of energy. I think that the ‘hydrogen economy’ has promise.

[DoctorStrangelove]

The genius on PM this evening came out with the classic statement that solar energy production was currently zero.

Odd that since it was after sundown.

I've had the fan heater and the TD going strong since 16:00.

Feck 'em.

And oddly enough it's one of those calm grey days of winter, so there's feckall wind generation to speak of.