Jeremy Harris Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 16 minutes ago, joe90 said: Will they work without a mobile signal? (I think I read that on here somewhere). No, they won't. It's one reason that we couldn't have one even if we wanted one. When the chap turned up to fit our E7 meter I related the tale about being given the hard sell to fit a "smart" meter and his comment was "I could have told them that one of those won't work here". Until such time as they can 100% guarantee that the data and control of "smart" meters is secure then I refuse to have one. There are already people who have had their electricity cut off by remote control as a consequence of data handling errors. One thing that they don't publicise is that all "smart" meters have a remote disconnection capability, so that those who don't pay their bills can just be disconnected without anyone having to come out to the premises. They also use the remote disconnection for anyone that's on a credit tariff, equivalent to the old coin in the slot meters, so they can turn off the supply if the credit isn't topped up. This also means that anyone can be cut off if there is an error in, or malicious intervention to, the meter control network. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 1 minute ago, JSHarris said: No, they won't. It's one reason that we couldn't have one even if we wanted one. When the chap turned up to fit our E7 meter I related the tale about being given the hard sell to fit a "smart" meter and his comment was "I could have told them that one of those won't work here". Until such time as they can 100% guarantee that the data and control of "smart" meters is secure then I refuse to have one. There are already people who have had their electricity cut off by remote control as a consequence of data handling errors. One thing that they don't publicise is that all "smart" meters have a remote disconnection capability, so that those who don't pay their bills can just be disconnected without anyone having to come out to the premises. The also use the remote disconnection for anyone that's on a credit tariff, equivalent to the old coin in the slot meters, so they can turn off the supply if the credit isn't topped up. Electricians have been asking for an isolator to be built into all smart meters to provide safe isolation. So they have the physical mechanism to disconnect the output, but still they won't provide an isolation facility. I guess a relay under control of some flaky software would not qualify as safe isolation anyway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Perhaps I could get hold of an old analogue meter and instal it with some solar PV. ?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan F Posted July 25, 2019 Author Share Posted July 25, 2019 3 hours ago, ProDave said: That is how the new export payment scheme will work. you first have to get a smart meter then the smart meter will record import and charge it at your normal rate and separately meter export and pay it at the much lower export rate. Currently as far as I know, Octopus are the only ones to introduce this on a trial basis and are paying 5.5p per KWh exported. It's more than a trial, it's open to anyone that i) first becomes an Octupus customer ii) has or can get a "SecureTM smart meter". Over providers will do the same under the SEG scheme. Octupus are actually also offering agile tarriffs where the price changes every 30min, this is from import only currently but I can see this moving to being used for export too. Soon you may even be able to use batteris to buy electricity when it's cheap and sell it when there is demand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishjohn Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 12month is what i read - -so not the best time to start with Pv as we don,t know for sure what final scheme will be and so cannot work out payback period etc till rates are firmed up It will come --give it time ,by then maybe battery pricing will have changed as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 32 minutes ago, Dan Feist said: It's more than a trial, it's open to anyone that i) first becomes an Octupus customer ii) has or can get a "SecureTM smart meter". Over providers will do the same under the SEG scheme. Octupus are actually also offering agile tarriffs where the price changes every 30min, this is from import only currently but I can see this moving to being used for export too. Soon you may even be able to use batteris to buy electricity when it's cheap and sell it when there is demand. Every supplier's intention is to move to 30 minute tariff changing on the fly, it's the primary objective behind rolling out "smart" meters. It is supported by suppliers as it reduces their business risk exposure dramatically, and so improves their profitability. At the moment, all suppliers buy electricity on a 30 minute slot buy-ahead daily auction. The wholesale price varies dramatically through the 24 hour buy-ahead period, from negative pricing during periods of high generation/low demand to pricing that may well exceed the highest retail price. Negative pricing seems odd, but is down to the rather distorted generation marketplace, where generators end up paying suppliers to take electricity that they are unable to stop generating (for practical reasons associated with the length of time it takes to ramp generating plant up and down, amongst other reasons). Suppliers work out what they think they will pay as an average wholesale price over a forthcoming time period, add on their operating costs, profit margin and a risk contingency and use that to set their tariffs. If they get their predictions as to how the wholesale prices will pan out wrong, they lose money and may well go bust (it has happened to a few of the smaller suppliers already). Much of the competitive edge between suppliers, once they have tuned their operating costs, is what they choose to use as a risk contingency. Set this too low and they may go bust, set it too high and they may not win new business because their tariffs aren't competitive. By switching to 30 minute variable pricing to the customer, they can win in two ways. Firstly, they remove the need to apply a pricing risk contingency, as they have passed the wholesale price variability risk on to their customers, so it is they that will carry that risk. Secondly, tariffs will become impenetrably difficult to compare, as prices will vary every 30 minutes. Comparing suppliers will be a bit of a nightmare for consumers, and most probably reduce the frequency with which they change supplier in order to get a better deal. Whenever customers stop switching to new suppliers, prices increase and supplier profitability increases. Right now we're seeing the leading edge of this change, with suppliers offering very attractive deals to entice more customers to have "smart" meters fitted. Once fitted a "smart" meter cannot be changed back. As soon as most customers have "smart" meters we will then see two things happen. Suppliers may well try to introduce punitive tariffs to those who don't yet have "smart" meters (but I would hope that OFGEM might try to regulate this) and suppliers will move away from the attractive tariffs, that were designed to entice customers to change meters, and we'll see something broadly similar to the way the mobile phone market operates, with complex tariffs that few have a hope of being able to understand or compare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Davies Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 (edited) 8 hours ago, jack said: You're probably right. I wonder whether that's changed at some point or it's just my memory failing! I'm completely with @ProDave here. Nothing's changed. It used to be that there were two limits: 1) The 16 A/phase limit (3.68 kW, or even 3.84 kW, in practice) for maximum you could feed to the network without prior notification or cost. If you wanted to feed more than that you had to notify them and they could charge you for any network strengthening required. If your (and your neighbour's) inputs were all within the 16 amp limit and the result was an overvoltage (over 253 volts) then the DNO had to pay for the fix. This is defined in paragraph 22 of the The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002. Whether the electricity comes from PV, wind, hydro, diesel, or whatever is irrelevant though the DNO could have a say in what equipment was used to ensure that the limit was obeyed. E.g., some DNOs allowed larger PV systems (both panels and inverters) combined with an appropriate diverter which limited the output to the network to less than 16 amps or 3.68 kW, others didn't. 2) The original FiT scheme had a big drop in pennies per kWh paid when the capacity of the PV panels went over 4kW such that there was a “dead band” from 4 kW up to somewhere around 6 kW when you didn't get more money even if you were feeding in more electricity. You could have, say, 8 kW of panels and get more money than somebody with 4 kW's worth but less than twice as much. Because these were similar limits lots of people got muddled between the two. The only thing that's changed is that 2 became progressively less important as the FiT rates dropped and the difference in rates decreased and the whole scheme has now gone away completely. AFAIK, nothing's changed with respect to the connection to the DNO (1, above). Edited July 25, 2019 by Ed Davies typo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 4 hours ago, scottishjohn said: 12month is what i read - -so not the best time to start with Pv as we don,t know for sure what final scheme will be and so cannot work out payback period etc till rates are firmed up It will come --give it time ,by then maybe battery pricing will have changed as well I can't see anyone paying more than the c 5.5p octopus are offering. I think it is a political thing so people can't complain about giving electricity away for free. It is not really financially viable. You are better off aiming for maximum self usage instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 I'm pretty sure Octopus is using this as a way of getting a bigger share of customers that have "smart" meters. They are the supplier offering the most enticing tariffs to customers who agree to have such a meter fitted, which suggests that my view as to why suppliers want most of their to have the things may be correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan F Posted July 27, 2019 Author Share Posted July 27, 2019 8 hours ago, SteamyTea said: @Dan Feistdo you know your current usage pattern, that can help. No, just have PHPP estimated values. A fairly small system would cover all usage in summer, and a large system isn't going to be big enough to cover all winter usage, so it's about finding the middle ground, where we save as much as possible on import, but don't spend too much on large system that we aren't going to use fully use when export only pays 5.5Kwh. The methodology in the "self-consumption" report I shared does this analysis and comes up with optimum system and battery side, just a shame there is nothing like available publically and that I can't find the "Darke and Taylor’s excel worksheet" that this report references anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 1 hour ago, Dan Feist said: No, just have PHPP estimated values. Trouble with that is it just gives daily, weekly, monthly or annual loads, does not help much in finding out when you import and when you would export. May be worth getting an energy logger and finding out what you use in your current place. As an example, I found out recently that I import no energy 60% of the time. That is not a contiguous 60%, but a few minutes every half hour or so. Below is an example of a typical day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Trouble with that is it just gives daily, weekly, monthly or annual loads, does not help much in finding out when you import and when you would export. May be worth getting an energy logger and finding out what you use in your current place. As an example, I found out recently that I import no energy 60% of the time. That is not a contiguous 60%, but a few minutes every half hour or so. Below is an example of a typical day. The 2 things you are missing in your evaluation, is you change your behaviour. It is better in summer to use the washing machine etc at mid day mostly for free, than use it at night on the E7 rate. And your immersion dump controller automatically sends spare power to the immersion heater whenever available, even if only for 30 seconds at t time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 Just now, ProDave said: even if only for 30 seconds at t time. Yes, I agree, but was highlighting the problems of choosing the correct battery/storage size, and the importance of data logging. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stones Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 On 25/07/2019 at 16:59, Dan Feist said: Soon you may even be able to use batteris to buy electricity when it's cheap and sell it when there is demand. I was having a conversation yesterday with a an energy project rep talking about peer to peer trading in electricity - I would be able to buy your (and others) excess PV / wind / stored energy etc. Would need a change in regulations which I guess energy companies wouldn't be that supportive of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 (edited) 19 hours ago, Stones said: I was having a conversation yesterday with a an energy project rep talking about peer to peer trading in electricity - I would be able to buy your (and others) excess PV / wind / stored energy etc. Would need a change in regulations which I guess energy companies wouldn't be that supportive of. Netherlands already have exactly this: https://www.powerpeers.nl/about (referenced in the UK smart meter report on making supplier switching simpler) Back to the OP, I had a similar question of "how much PV" but it was solved by the planning office: having a south facing front roof pitch facing into a conservation area they weren't happy about any PV, but I suggested a whole-roof of inline panels and they said OK. So now we're waiting on the DNO to approve 8kW of feed in. In principle this was a simple decision - sure 8kW costs more than 4, but 4 costs more than 2, and being able to self-generate is not going to become less valuable as the energy network moves more and more towards electric. The only snag is the bureaucracy. After 3 months we got the PP for the PV, but after another 3 months we're still waiting on the DNO to reply to the G99 request to connect 8kW to a single phase. For those that say "just phone the DNO for guideline on...." I'd love to know the trick as every time i spoke to them they said they could only reply if we made the application, and the application seems to have no limit on how long they can take to respond. And I bet when the do finally respond it will be a simple "no", with no indication of cost of installing 3-phase and it'll be another 4 months waiting for them to answer that question... :-/ Edited July 28, 2019 by joth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishjohn Posted July 28, 2019 Share Posted July 28, 2019 16 hours ago, Stones said: I was having a conversation yesterday with a an energy project rep talking about peer to peer trading in electricity - I would be able to buy your (and others) excess PV / wind / stored energy etc. Would need a change in regulations which I guess energy companies wouldn't be that supportive of. there are companies that do that now you rent them some space to sit 40ft containers on.if you have a nice large supply close by these are huge battery packs +control gear--1mw each they buy electric when cheap -then sell back when the grid needs it to smooth out local power needs looking at a site now with that in mind - -the main thing is that your local grid has some spare capacity in it and you have local substation that is big enough to take the flow -- this seems to be the most usual problem for them not being able to do it,so I am told ,that and planning as they make a bit of a hum- If my primary discussions +rental rates are correct --then you could expect about £10k-15k an acre for 25 years -- could be a nice little earner for in the right place Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishjohn Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 the more i dig into this storage idea the more it looks like it is only good if you can sell it not to the DNO but to a local company that has big power needs ,but if just pure grid smoothing then the rate drops dramatically --will post more when definitives are known . It seems a lot of solar PV farms have allowed for storage as well --but not doing it yet -as the 10-15year projected cycle of lithium cells will not make a profit as selling renewables are expected to drop in value So from what i can gleen from many sources it looks like they are waiting for "flow batteries " to develop a little more ,as they do not have a limited life span same as lithium so maybe when someone makes a smaller flow battery that might be the time to fit to domestic installation ? the fact that all these solar farms have allowed for batteries in design of farm ,but not fitted them would suggest the time is not right yet for battery storage --just use all you make to get best return but maybe BREXIT will change that as well . One company who is offering PPA deal told me its 15 years to get capitol costs back before they start to make money --if it is all just sold to DNO. so this backs up my calculations for the domestic system - -obviously not that much cheaper to do even when you talking about 30 acres +10mw than if you do a 4kw home system which makes me think we are close to minimum costs for panels now ,without some miracle breakthrough in production so unless FIT or something comes back then the domestic market will not grow very much --a pension fund can look at 25year term ,but not many private people will . I am not saying don,t do it --but to get your best return and payback quicker you got to use it all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 (edited) Carrying on from what @scottishjohn has said. Many large renewable projects were installed a decade ago for a limited life on a site. There is a good chance that life will be extended. Even without replacement, some of these sites will produce very cheap power. Large scale storage is now about £10/MWh. If you add in the production costs of say £30/MWh, then you are getting reliable power at 4p/kWh wholesale. That is about as cheap as it gets. Edited July 31, 2019 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishjohn Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 no one i have talked to is offering as short a time scale all 25 year lease Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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