PDQ Mobile wrote: ↑11 Jan 2025, 10:17am
[XAP]Bob wrote: ↑11 Jan 2025, 1:10am
My contribution at times of peak demand, and peak fossil use are generally zero, or negative…
Since you were picking an individual spot in time I looked at that same spot in time as well.
My contribution to the daily load is absolutely not zero, particularly not over winter (though it gets pretty close in summer).
I only took a screen shot to show how dependent the country still is on non carbon neutral (and nuclear) energy.
Overall is the important, indeed only relevant, thing IMV.
I strongly disagree. The ability to pick and choose when I import energy (though that choice is at least somewhat determined by my energy supplier, not me) is key to making sure that I use as little fossil fuel derived energy as possible. Nuclear is fine, and we should be looking to increase our capacity - preferably by deploying SMRs at places like service stations, or even shipping container sized micro reactors... There is some weird objection people have when it comes to harnessing clean energy using atomic physics.
We are ever less reliant on fossil fuels - just 42% last year, yet another record (and they keep on coming, year after year).
Last year I imported 10.2MWh, of which 7.2MWh were what the grid defines as low carbon (i.e. it probably includes some drax power), I also generated and exported 1.9/2MWh). That's substantially less fossil fuel energy used than is typical.
Last year for 11584 out of the 17544 half hour settlement periods (i.e ~65% of the year) I didn't consume energy from the grid (or at least I consumed less than 50Wh across that half hour period, there is usually some tiny give and take). That is how the grid is going to seriously decarbonise - I can pick and choose (or let my energy supplier do that) when to consume energy based on the generation available on the grid. If we regionalise pricing I would be incentivised further to do so when the local weather was favourable, and if there wasn't sufficient local capacity there would be a commercial incentive to put more generation locally.
It makes a huge difference *when* you pull energy from the grid, and it makes even more difference if you can shape that load, and it's even better if that shaping can be automated.
We are on the same page here though, or perhaps two sides of the same coin.
I am a techno-phobe though, and ever more so; in that we do differ.
The levels of fraud, the ever growing pressure to "update" stuff, the increasing level of "influencers" putting their views out to millions at the press of a button, make me sometimes want to throw my phone in a lake!
I fail to see the advantages over older paper based stuff.
Fraud (and influencers are part of that problem) is not what I'm looking at with technology... social media in general can go and take a long walk off a short pier.
Paper based stuff would mean no time of day metering beyond the old E7 and E10, which are incredibly blunt tools, slightly better than nothing, but absolutely not up to the job of actually having demand significantly follow generation, rather than the other way around.
With smart metering, and with control of "non time sensitive" power usage automated (whether locally in response to price changes or remotely with appropriate financial incentives) it's possible for load to follow generation very nicely. I've had days when my EV seems to have a dozen short charging sessions set by octopus, I don't think they do less than a quarter hour typically, but that's responding to grid demands, generation forecasts, costs, other people's charging needs etc. I don't care when the car is charged, so long as it gets enough over the course of a week I don't care when in the week the car is charged, I try to make sure I charge on greener days, and leave it unplugged on days with less clean energy available....
Similarly I wouldn't care when a hot water tank was heated, just that I had hot water.
Same with storage heaters, and similar with home heating - boost the heat earlier in the day, and most houses can ride out a period of low generation.
And another difference between us is that I love cycling in shorts.
Not today though.
I could go out in shorts, except that I'm not allowed out at all at the moment post surgery.
I'd probably need to put the front insert into the vent hole on the velomobile though, keep a bit more heat in
