DamonHD

A large inverter will likely have higher overheads/losses at lower loads: probably don't size to cover your biggest load, but maybe 95% of the time. I have what is now a quite weedy inverter (~1.25kW, 6kWh) but only import/leak ~0.3kWh/d in summer, in part because low overnight loads are covered effectively.

Just in case anyone likes those "making of" backstories... https://www.earth.org.uk/pint-poster-paper-slice-and-dice-decarb.html

I suspect that non-ToU tariffs may become much more expensive, so those who pay no attention at all will pay a heavy premium; those who pay more attention will save (or earn) significantly.

Maybe. But things as simple as adjusting heating/water times and picking a suitable tariff is at the easy end for example.

New GB grid frequency response services, eg from batteries, are required to respond in a second or so: https://www.neso.energy/industry-information/balancing-services/frequency-response-services Linear frequency/power responses and a dead-band help prevent them making things worse. Millions of devices should avoid deliberately or accidentally synchronising to cause 'herding' effects: my own response mechanisms generally add at least some seconds' randomness before going on load or coming off a response to low frequency. The 10-minute randomisation for EV charging is another anti-herding design.

https://www.academia.edu/2998-3665/3/3/10.20935/AcadEnergy8514 Introduction: To eliminate the ~15% of UK greenhouse gas emissions due to home heating most will move to heat pumps by 2050. But electrifying heating will roughly double peak demand on the grid while green intermittent renewables such as wind and solar make available generation less predictable. Most of us will need to learn to flex our home space heat and hot water and other electricity demand else we will pay a high premium, but we do not all have to flex in the same ways at the same times to support the greening grid. Materials and methods: This study synthesises existing literature and first-hand observations from investment banking derivatives and the energy system, along with primary data from one UK home enumerating a number of viable techniques. Results: Static and dynamic demand-side flexibility responses, automated and manual, have visibly moved the case study home’s load profile away from that of a typical Great Britain (GB) household on winter weekdays when national demand is highest. Conclusions: A portfolio approach with a mixture of different grid flexibility responses across the housing stock, including those driven by Time-of-Use tariffs, can be a first-class contribution to Net Zero.

All heat engines are still limited by Carnot. I have a bunch of largish Seebeck devices in my shed never fitted. I was going to do solar thermal + Seebeck, but went big on solar PV instead.

Here and the 'See also' links: https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-Spacetherm-aerogel-thermal-insulation.html And here, for lolz: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2010/11/24/how-i-used-space-shuttle-tech-to-insulate-the-living-room/471707

FWIW, I established with my FiT administrator that it should be OK to add balcony solar to an existing house that has deemed exports: https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-GB-FiT-and-plug-in-solar.html

We were told by a neighbour with some glee during our house-warming party (previous house) that the occupant had died in the main bedroom. Luckily there was no smell by the time we moved in!

This may be helpful, but I think that the bottom line is that anything other than the current marginal pricing scheme is lilkely to be gamed and hides true costs. https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-the-uk-government-aims-to-break-link-between-gas-and-electricity-prices/

https://www.beama.org.uk/resourceLibrary/university-of-salford---beama-trv-energy-house-report.html Unlike gas central heating systems, TRVs are often omitted from ASHP installations based on concerns that they may reduce system efficiency and increase energy use. However, open-circuit design relies upon accurate sizing calculations and use of an appropriate weather compensation curve, neither of which can be guaranteed. Furthermore, open-circuit design limits occupant control and can lead to overheating in rooms with uncontrolled heat gains. Tests were therefore conducted to measure how trimming room temperatures using TRVs influences internal conditions, ASHP efficiency, and space heating energy consumption.

FWIW: https://www.beama.org.uk/resourceLibrary/university-of-salford---beama-trv-energy-house-report.html

Kein Ding

I think that we should be generating stored H2 to cover Dunkelflauten from serious *overbuild* of solar and wind, not from trying to work round transmission constraints.

"the registration with the network operator is no longer required. Only in the so-called market master data register of the Federal Network Agency, balcony solar devices must be registered. This is done with a few mouse clicks." https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/energie/energiewende-balkonkraftwerke-100.html

We have had decades, and we already have developed enough tech to do a reasonable job. It's never going to be beautiful and smooth, giving up the unpaid-for externalities/damage from fossil fuels and some other bad behaviours. Passively waiting for some miracle that cannot happen will have us all dead.

There is no need to be patronising - have I spoken to you that way? I and a few others may just possibly have thought ahout this issue once or twice. Soon all the fossil fuels have to go, or we wipe outselves out. There's a famous quote similar to "Humans would be the first species to choose to make itself extinct because it wasn't cost effective to bother doing the right thing." The sooner we stop dragging heels and at most use fossils ONLY as an emergency backstop the better. Carping and delaying makes everything worse for everyone.

New coal *is* being built, nominally for reasons of energy security, but running at lower and lower capacity factor. Eg see here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/

Your experience was nasty, and we should hold responsible the suppliers and importers of faulty dangerous goods. There is a thorough write-up here, BTW: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/

I think that current G98 microinverters will work for this and be safe. (As would probably one with EU nominally-slghtly-different specs.) The key current GB grid restriction is that a Part-P sparky has to wire solar generation into a dedicated circuit (and tell the DNO). And a meter may have to be swapped if it would run backwards, which a DNO or supplier could be awkward or slow about. In Germany for balcony solar the rules were changed to make it the DNO/supplier problem to deal with, ASAP if there is a fire or other risk, else eat the billing errors until the meter is swapped. We already know balcony solar to be safe in practice - the microinverters cut off quickly if the grid goes away for example. I imagine that the ENA (and DNOs) have already said "go ahead" and are cranking out adjusted docs/specs/regs as fast as they can. It doesn't hurt them at all if the politician will takes the flack and the tech is already known and the metering issue can be overridden by fiat as in Germany.

And more fun... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-in-solar-available-within-months

I am not in Brighton! My Motorwind stuff gave up the ghost a while ago, and I put PV along the wall it had been mounted on. But a combination of the two would still be interesting...

I have responsed to the consultation request. Generally in dense urban areas wind generation isn't going to work well because of messed-up turbulent air and noise and flicker and ice-throw issues. But there's plenty of England for which this might work. I also pointed out that single-axis HAWTs should not be assumed to be the only game in town. My tiny MotorWind setup worked reasonably in my very poor location, and other novel (probably not VAWT) designs might work. I have suggested a limit on total swept area or output power or to ~10% of expected output power for a full wind farm in the same location, ie this should not be permitting a wind-farm on the sly, but should allow low intensity microgen energy extraction to support farmers or factories or community projects...

Most urban wind is very poor, and mounting a turbine on a home makes for a lot of vibration noise. If you are in rural area with a bit of space, especially coastal, small wind can make sense.