New Kentish Town

[SteamyTea]

I would like to know the details of the energy management for this product.

If the home owners don't the full control over what is on their own roofs, then I can see it failing.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/07/new-all-electric-town-in-kent-strikes-deal-to-supply-power-back-to-the-grid

[JohnMo]

Can see this happening and more. Most new heat pumps are already equipped with smart grid functions - so electric company can switch on off at will, so why not PV feeding a communal battery? Octopus have tariffs that take over control of your battery, in house or in car to charge or discharge at will 

 

Wouldn't be what I would choose to do. But that's the way things are moving.

[Marvin]

 

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I would like to know the details of the energy management for this product.

If the home owners don't (have) the full control over what is on their own roofs, then I can see it failing.

This sort of thing requires individual home personalised management to be successful. I need a full car battery for tomorrow's journey and have filled it using our PV. If it is used when no PV is available during today I would have to buy electricity during tomorrow to get home at twice the price of what it would cost me from home.  

Edited August 9 by Marvin
clarification

[ProDave]

I would be dead against my own battery (whether house battery or car battery) being drained at will by others.  If the communal solar farm and grid scale battery wants to do that then fine.  

 

This will be a useful test of whether this grand scheme is actually viable and works, and what it actually costs the residents for their electricity overall.

 

The cynic in me says there will be a covenant saying no ICE cars allowed and you must have an EV to live there.

[SteamyTea]

A lot will depend on the energy requirements for the homes.

10 kWh/day, not really a problem, 50 kWh/day, a big problem.

A car can gobble 50 kWh pretty easily.

[Kelvin]

Doesn’t seem unreasonable. I’m fairly certain that the home owner will have enough control over the EV charger to ensure they have what they need for the following day. If they don’t and it’s all a bit of a lottery then it’s not going to work. 
 

I also can’t see how a covenant on what type of car you buy is easily enforceable so that seems unlikely too. 
 

The challenge will be twofold. Is it any cheaper than the average and will it technically work with little input from the homeowner. Our system doesn’t require much input from me but equally it also isn’t fit and forget. 

[Kelvin]

33 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

A lot will depend on the energy requirements for the homes.

10 kWh/day, not really a problem, 50 kWh/day, a big problem.

A car can gobble 50 kWh pretty easily.

Car charging will likely come from the grid or if there’s excess solar being produced it will divert to the car although that’ll depend on how the system is configured. My charger is installed at the meter (so before CU) Consequently the energy controller can’t see the EV load so it doesn’t dump the storage battery into the car. However when the system is exporting (which is generally only with excess solar) it will charge the car if I let it. But 95% of the EV charging comes from the grid at the cheap rate. 

[SteamyTea]

30 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

how the system is configured

This is the big problem really.

It is like predicting day after tomorrow's weather from the 1990 to 2020 climate data.

Gives you great central tendancies and extreme values, just not when they happen.

 

The only ways around it are storage, imports and tight usage control.

Or financial incentives.

If you knew that you could sell your excess power at a significant price above imports, but maybe limited in quantity (say 15 kWh per session @3 times import price), then it would possibly be worth a number of individuals to invest in extra storage and management systems.

[Kelvin]

Folk that install PV (and battery storage) probably put a bit more effort into trying to get the most from it. Folk that buy houses that happen to have PV on the roof are less likely to bother (sweeping generalisation obvz). I have a few friends in the latter category who have never looked at what their PV system is doing beyond ‘free leccy’ when the sun shines. 
 

The system I have has various operating modes by default and then a relatively comprehensive custom mode. But it also has an AI mode where you tell it what you want to maximise and it then works out what to do to achieve that based on whichever tariff you’re on, demand  patterns and weather. Not tried it as I don’t have the export MPAN number setup yet so just configured it as self-consumption. From what I can see running it in AI mode will cycle the battery more frequently as it will start to export the battery charge (down to whichever base SoC % you set to hold for power cuts) ahead of the cheap window starting then re-charge the battery. The battery warranty is both time based and energy throughput based. 
 

In the almost 4  weeks it’s been running it’s generated 694kWh and I’ve exported 168kWh and imported 200kWh (which was 90% EV charging) 

 

This Kentish Town design takes all of that complication out of it for the vast majority of people that don’t want to be fannying about trying to maximise their setup. I can see the appeal of that for most people. 

Edited August 9 by Kelvin

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

 

I also can’t see how a covenant on what type of car you buy is easily enforceable so that seems unlikely too. 

Plenty of estates have covenants preventing you parking a van or caravan on the property.  Whether they are enforced or not is another matter.  but if the objective is to present to the world how green this development is, they really don't want people like me with a big diesel powered truck living there do they?

[Kelvin]

The builder often puts such a covenant in place for vans and caravans to make their houses easier to sell. They are quite often time limited.  Even if they are permanent who enforces it? The builder won’t care after they’ve left site. The neighbours? They might club together I suppose and threaten legal action. Unlikely in most cases as who wants a neighbour dispute hanging over their house. Maybe a management company if there is one. I’d be surprised if this place  will have an EV only covenant however. It’s being described as a new town so not just a housing estate. They could make the whole town a low emissions zone of course. Wouldn’t be a bad thing. 

Edited August 9 by Kelvin

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

big diesel powered truck

Rolling Coal

 

 

 

I am trying to clean my DPF ATM, I must start using the back lanes instead of the A30.

I did keep it at 3000 RPM at the pedestrian crossing in PZ earlier, people crossed quicker for some reason.