Since I might have to save my pennies to afford our electric bill 🤣 I won’t be subscribing to the FT any time soon. But their reporting is usually accurate. Do you know if these headlines are available anywhere else?, trade magazines for example?

Like Judith, I don’t have a FT subscription, but on the surface of it, the issue with NESO’s push for “flexibility” and demand management seems more about managing shortages than supporting a smooth transition to renewables. If the approach isn’t carefully thought through, we could indeed see a situation where only those who can afford solar and battery storage will be able to use electricity affordably and reliably.

It’s a shame that, instead of making electricity genuinely competitive with gas, policy decisions seem to be putting additional strain on consumers, and I can see why people are getting fed up. I’m also seeing electricity prices rising steeply in other countries, but hopefully, there’s a shift in focus soon towards practical, affordable solutions that support mass adoption of renewables rather than policies that make electricity a luxury.

I have solar and batteries and was seriously considering installing a heat pump but lack of daylight and need for heating tend to come together in the winter months.  Now if someone has  (cheap) batteries that could store enough summer solar to last through the winter that would be a game changer.

I would need about 6000kW, which at current battery prices is about £20,000 so probably not a sensible investment.

@wanttobegreen I don't know what your heat pump sizing would be but that sounds extreme. Perhaps you could elaborate?

In kwh terms people are running heat pumps for a lot less.

I'm sure battery owning people will be along soon to update this thread. 

6000 kW is enough to cover the whole winter heating assuming 100% efficiency. (Yes I know any decent system should be much much better than that) but even assuming 400%  1500kW of batteries just for heating seems a poor investment.

Is there anyone out there that runs there heat pump mainly on solar?

TO Lucia yes I totally agree but currently it is looking like £5000 ish investment after grant and no financial return which is a big donation to saving the planet and rather more than I am comfortable with.

TO Toodles thank you for that useful information I will recalculate and see if I come up with a different outcome.

Posted by: @lucia

↑

[NESO flexibility Strategy] is increasingly making de-carbonisation look not so much like policy as gesture politics. It smacks of electricity rationing rather than management

Yes, the present strategy is for 'rationing' during times of peak demand.

It was in the recent DESNZ consultation Delivering a Smart and Secure Electricity System (SSES) during April/May '24.

That consultation was the second part of SSES and was sub-titled "Implementation".
The first part had been in 2022.

The proposals being referred to by @lucia and reported in the FT are those regarding direct control of appliances in the home.
If you are of a nervous disposition or react adversely to state-sanctioned control, please ignore that link and what I'm about to write. 😲 

Implementation Phase-1 is intended to come into play during 2026.

It will facilitate remote control of Energy Smart Appliances (ESAs) under a strategy called Demand Side Response (DSR).

Licensed DSR Agents, who are most likely to be existing Electricity Suppliers, will be able to switch off domestic appliances remotely.
The householder will have to sign up to the scheme, and will receive financial compensation.

Phase-1 is to allow suitable controls to be installed, standardise commands/ encryption, and to issue a regulatory framework for compliance.

Yes, I have just used the word compliance in a topic discussing government-sanctioned control.
What could possibly go wrong?

The first (2022) Consultation received just 86 responses across the entire UK, mostly from within the Energy Sector.

This 2024 Consultation was divided into three parts, of which DSR of ESAs was Part-1, comprising 58 technical questions.
I would be surprised if they received more than 50 responses.

I was a respondent, and I have since heard from within DESNZ that DSR, Smart Metering and ToU Tariffs are receiving a great deal of input from civil servants.
The questions were phrased with the assumption that your answer to the previous one had been approving of the proposal.
There was a bias in the question sequencing.

Since I frequently disagreed with the technical approaches, I found myself have to 'edit' the later questions before I could even respond.

See what I wrote yesterday in this post on the topic Business Case for a Battery, in which I listed some of my objections to DSR of heat-pumps in particular.

@wanttobegreen as per Toodles' advice. The Solar PV batteries in winter coupled with Cosy electricity tariff are a game changer. 85% of our electricity import is low rate, which including VAT & standing charge is 18.1p/kWh. We import 5500kWh for an all-electric ASHP house, with the heating on all day every day 4am-9pm in the heating season, the house sitting lovely at 21-22degC.

That's £995 a year total bill, but we will flip to Agile tariff in summer (another Octopus product) to take advantage of the lower standing charge and knock a further £40 or so off that. We're self-sufficient or net exporters in summer/non-heating season, so the variable cost per kWh with Agile isn't much of a consideration.

Our £5000 investment in batteries has a reasonable ROI <10years a it saves £540 per annum on our imported energy compared to Octopus standard flexible tariff. The battery storage reduces our import to almost nothing in the summer season as we can store solar PV generated.

PS: those on Agile right now are steeling themselves for some very high kWh peak prices tomorrow, we flipped tariff at the just the right time in October. Agile and Cosy are both products that incentivise load shifting to off-peak rates, and with battery storage that's very simple and cost-effective.

@allyfish We changed to Cosy on 1st. July and I have been keeping an eye on the daily average off-peak Agile prices as a comparison - so far Cosy has been a considerably cheaper option where I only import the lowest Cosy tariff and use the battery for the other 16 hours. Full disclosure in the new year when we will have been on Cosy for 6 full months. Regards, Toodles.

@allyfish Thank you for the information, may I ask how much battery storage you have (kWh rather than £).

So glad I joined this site rather than feeling it was just me verses the installation companies.