@majordennisbloodnok 

Interesting reading but............... beyond my comprehension.  Reading the documentation on how to download and install HACS is enough to completely confuse me and make me realise that this isn't for me.  Thanks for trying guys, much appreciated, but I have to recognise my limitations.  It's all Greek to me. 😆 

The solutions being discussed here are based on tariffs.
I ought to point out that using price-based solutions to the energy crisis can't resolve the problems.
It actually makes them worse.

Tariffs founded on national supply & demand statistics will inevitably cause surges
and the more so as their popularity becomes widespread.

I posted similar sentiments here just yesterday.

The majority of the British electricity supply system isn't based in towns and cities.
It's spread across the countryside, and would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade.

I'm not permitted to openly publish the data I'd like to, but here's an 'anonymised' area of rural England:

Those red lines are the 11kV network.
It operates between the Primary Substations and the Local Substations.

The small round black dots are pole-mounted 3-phase local substation transformers.
The larger round blue dots are pole-mounted split-phase transformers.

There is only one ground-mounted substation.
It's a black square in the un-named village.

Successive government policies to promote

• rooftop solar panels
• heat-pumps
• EV chargers

as a universal 'right' for all consumers, now threatens the integrity of this vast rural network.

Implementing Low Carbon Technology (LCT) on properties with single-phase supplies has resulted in transformers and cables which are regularly exceeding their operational specifications. Moreover, the energy losses due to phase imbalance are enormous.

99.9% of these rural cables and transformers have no monitoring.
We only discover what load-factors are being applied by looking at the databases which show how many properties on each transformer have applied for G99 or LCT consent from their DNO. I have access to that data for four of the Distribution Regions.

There are 230,000 ground-mounted transformers,
and 320,000 pole-mounted transformers.

The nation cannot afford to re-plumb the regional Distribution Grid.

It is increasingly important that we migrate to energy-usage patterns which prevent multiple households from suddenly demanding electricity 'because it's cheap now'.

@transparent As I understand it, there is the matter of that pesky ‘Duck Curve’ which outlines the period of greatest demand; this needs a strategy to flatten it and spread the highest demand over a much longer and thus lower demand period. The duck’s back is already carrying a premium charge - I suppose that though consumers are having to pay the most during this time for their energy, they either feel they have little choice about deferring / lowering their demand just then or they are just grinning and bearing it … or they just don’t care!

If energy pricing is biased in favour of cheaper consumption at off peak times, surely those who can and those who care, will avail themselves of those lower rates.

I can only assume that either this scheme has not been running long enough or needs further advertising or educating the consumer has not been effective. I believe that if present consumption was spread evenly throughout the 24 hours, the load at any one time would be well within the capacity of the grid. The load isn’t even and the peak would be very expensive to cater for - so summat must be done. What inducements other than off-peak pricing could be adopted?

So LCT is loading the system and I imagine a large part of this is during sunlight hours when PV is exporting, short of providing battery storage at the source of this export, this will remain a problem as the generating hours cannot be shifted around.

Perhaps rather than using smart meter offsets to smooth out the spikes in demand, the suppliers should consider grouping their consumers into different ‘time plans’; some would be on the ‘use now’ whilst others were on the ‘abstain now’ group times. I have no idea how large an area would need to be in any group or whether Kraken could be used to implement such a ‘crackpot’ idea - I am just putting this up the flag pole to see if anyone would salute it! Regards, Toodles. 

@toodles

In an ideal World we would all work together as a team, consumers would limit their consumption as much as possible and also try to spread it evenly throughout the day. The National Grid and distribution networks would try to organise the flow of energy around the system to minimise losses and keep any necessary upgrades to an absolute minimum. The various generating companies would try to meet demand in the most efficient manner, while also keeping the price to an absolute minimum.

Maybe after the next ice age we will discover this 'ideal World'.

I have 16kw LG ASHP, 8kw pv solar, 24kwh GivEnergy batteries

Other factors to consider:

Inverter charge/discharge rates. My Gen1 batteries & Inverter will only charge/discharge at 2.6kwh. Whereas my ashp might be drawing 3 to 6kwh plus base usage. Let alone car charger, tumble dryer, oven etc etc

My Ashp has an older controller - not suited to automation. 

My pv solar is mostly east facing on low pitch.

i use WonderWatt with daily tweaks. Very useful.

Personally if I was on standard tariffs I would seriously consider other options for fixed tariffs. However with PV, batteries and ashp i'm happy enough with Agile import and fixed (15p) export.

But will be watching prices in case risks makes it necessary to switch from Agile to Fixed.

Previously I was on Tracker import and will need to see if I can timeshift sufficiently in winter to keep my average Agile cost below Tracker. So far over the last 5 months since switching the average import on Agile is under 11p (+vat) vs previous 3 months on Tracker was ave just under 17p.

5 months imports over 2000 kwh as it includes car and also charging batteries at cheap rates for usage by myself or even exporting at 15p when worthwhile. i tend to only force discharge/export batteries when opportunities to charge them at 5p or less. Occasionally we've seen negative rates even.

During the winter i may have to make sure I boost heating at cheaper periods and use batteries during peaks etc. I don't think I can automate fully as I have an LG ashp with older controller. Hopefully manual interventions can be done without taking up tooooo much of my life!

Fwiw... using weather compensation.. My annual usage is looking roughly:

Total usage Inc car, ashp other: 12k kwh

Grid import: 8k kwh

Ashp usage: 6k kwh

Solar prod: 6k kwh

export: 2k kwh

car charger: 2k kwh

Difficult to fully analyse as I use force charge and force discharge from batteries when cost effective. Inc Saving Sessions or if Agile imports sub 5p

Batteries allow me to maximise Saving Sessions in last couple of winters. Credits near £200 last winter

Weather compensation has helped me reduce annual usage for ashp from over 8k kwh to under 6k kwh last year. Over 25% saving

Posted by: @tim441

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Weather compensation has helped me reduce annual usage for ashp from over 8k kwh to under 6k kwh last year. Over 25% saving

I have moved from batch charge only at night where possible, and overrunning a few hours on normal rates (or depleting battery), if required, to straight WC, no setbacks, no thermostat. Expectation is a similar drop in kWh, will reserve judgement until I see cost easy to revert back if I want 

Posted by: @tim441

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Batteries allow me to maximise Saving Sessions in last couple of winters. Credits near £200 last winter

And that's the issue isn't it?

For all the care Tim has taken to give us data in kWh, the final answer is in pounds sterling.

The great majority of UK consumers remain oblivious of the effect their grid-demand has at the local substation down the road.
I've picked out this graph from 30th June which shows the effect of a typical house with solar-panels and a home storage battery.
Imagine that Tim's house is connected to Phase L2:

It's possible that the overnight current draw on L2 is storage-heaters rather than a battery, as they've also taken care to slowly ramp-up the current, rather than suddenly switch-on.
But you get the idea, I hope.

I suspect that the morning was largely overcast in that location.
When the sun emerges around 11:30, L2's current drops off because there's some export to the grid going on.

The 'solutions' we need to implement should be altruistic towards our neighbours and the grid.
The present range of tariffs are 'selfish' in that they favour what's best for me.

Here's the 'Duck Curve' which @toodles referred to above

I've deliberately chosen a substation feed which does demonstrate that demand-curve pretty closely.
It's a 3-phase underground supply to a housing estate where a high proportion of households will be on prepayment meters.
By definition, they are unable to enjoy any of the ToU tariffs being discussed here.

Posted by: @toodles

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What inducements other than off-peak pricing could be adopted?

Where there's a lot of social-housing in close proximity, a 3-phase storage battery could be installed to serve a number of households.
Each house is then supplied with single-phase, as at present,
but the grid only 'sees' a low-level current across all 3 phases to recharge the battery as required.

That would facilitate:

• electricity bills payed to the social-housing provider instead of a For-Profit energy supplier
• cheaper per kWh because electricity is only taken from the grid when it has available capacity, and therefore lower cost
• the gradual removal of those iniquitous pre-pay meters
• and a reduction in energy poverty.

What's not to like?

Subsidies for social-housing providers to install multi-property storage-battery hubs is way cheaper than trying to upgrade the 11kV Distribution Grid.

@transparent said: Subsidies for social-housing providers to install multi-property storage-battery hubs is way cheaper than trying to upgrade the 11kV Distribution Grid.

That is what I wanted to hear! So the NG has a solution (or at least an ‘easement’) to the present problem that would save costs and obviate the need to spend £Bn’s upgrading the distribution grid - so when can we expect to see these energy storage schemes get under way. Perhaps Mr. Milliband is working on it now? 😉 Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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So the NG has a solution (or at least an ‘easement’) to the present problem that would save costs and obviate the need to spend £Bn’s upgrading the distribution grid

Not quite...

We here on the RHH Forum have a possible solution. 😎 

National Grid's licence from Ofgem prohibits them from owning or controlling any generation or storage assets.

I've thrown this idea into the melting pot precisely because this forum has a wealth of technically-astute contributors who could chew this over and tweek it into a viable proposal.

If others think this is worthy of further consideration, then let's move it out of this topic and into one of its own.
What's @editor  think?

Posted by: @transparent

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And that's the issue isn't it?

For all the care Tim has taken to give us data in kWh, the final answer is in pounds sterling.

Posted by: @transparent

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The 'solutions' we need to implement should be altruistic towards our neighbours and the grid.
The present range of tariffs are 'selfish' in that they favour what's best for me.

Often, yes, but not necessarily. The TOU tariffs being discussed are costlier at peak demand and cheaper at periods of lower use. As a result, rather than thinking of exploiting those tariffs as being selfish it's also reasonable to consider the lower prices as a reward for consumers doing the right thing. I'm well aware that's just sophistry but does it matter if someone's motivations are altruistic and they're rewarded vs acting selfishly in response to lower prices? If the resultant behaviour benefits everyone else that's a win either way isn't it?

Posted by: @transparent

↑

Here's the 'Duck Curve' which @toodles referred to above

I've deliberately chosen a substation feed which does demonstrate that demand-curve pretty closely.
It's a 3-phase underground supply to a housing estate where a high proportion of households will be on prepayment meters.
By definition, they are unable to enjoy any of the ToU tariffs being discussed here.

 

Posted by: @toodles

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What inducements other than off-peak pricing could be adopted?

 

 

Where there's a lot of social-housing in close proximity, a 3-phase storage battery could be installed to serve a number of households.
Each house is then supplied with single-phase, as at present,
but the grid only 'sees' a low-level current across all 3 phases to recharge the battery as required.

That would facilitate:

• electricity bills payed to the social-housing provider instead of a For-Profit energy supplier
• lower cost per kWh because electricity is only taken from the grid when it has available capacity
• the gradual removal of those iniquitous pre-pay meters
• and a reduction in energy poverty.

What's not to like?

Subsidies for social-housing providers to install multi-property storage-battery hubs is way cheaper than trying to upgrade the 11kV Distribution Grid.

Now here I have to agree wholeheartedly. To be frank I don't really care if the solutions you've put forward are more altruistic or still pandering to selfishness because the key point for me is that you're tackling the situation for those who are most hamstrung. A solution only a few can afford means only a small proportion of the population are contributing to any improvement. A solution that works for the majority means everyone can become part of the answer and I applaud that approach.

Posted by: @morgan

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@majordennisbloodnok 

Interesting reading but............... beyond my comprehension.  Reading the documentation on how to download and install HACS is enough to completely confuse me and make me realise that this isn't for me.  Thanks for trying guys, much appreciated, but I have to recognise my limitations.  It's all Greek to me. 😆 

Frankly, @morgan, I suspected that would be your conclusion and if that means we've saved you the cost of the Home Assistant Green then I'll still take that as a win.

@majordennisbloodnok 

I have purchased the HA Green already LOL.  I was determined.  Now less so.