Hi all,

An idle thought while mowing the lawn - has anyone yet seen any schemes where homeowners are given a 'free' storage battery in exchange for the profit made selling back to the grid at times of peak demand? A kind of distributed version of the battery storage farms that are popping up to cater for short term spikes? My vision is that existing domestic PV panels could be coupled to storage batteries; the homeowner gets a better use of power during the evening, etc and gets to smooth out their supply vs demand curve and the battery supplier gets a distributed renewable generation / storage network. Its a variation on the free panels schemes that were going around obviously.

Any thoughts / information or are we not there in terms of technology yet?

Does not need a smart meter, just a discharge meter that timestamps the flow.
Then some way of collecting the data.
If it was going to happen, it could be incorporated into peoples EV charging points as the infrastructure is already there.

Something like this: https://www.smartgridltd.co.uk/for-home/

Niall, thanks for that link - very interesting. If something looks too good to be true etc etc. Has anyone spotted any major flaws with the concept, as I haven't yet. I wish I wasn't such a cynic, although Smart Grid ltd seem to be getting there.

My modest Wish List (excluding the Tesla S and so on):
A reasonably priced battery system for my home, to store my surplus PV production, after using it as my primary electrical energy source. Smart Grid provide one free! Just keep in mind nothing is actually free these days.

A Smart Meter, to allow the battery to top-up charge if necessary during off-peak hours at the cheapest rate. Again Smart Grid offers this.
Once most consumers have these new meters, I think the cheap off peak tariff will disappear and Time of Day tariffs will become the norm.

Same Smart Meter to enable the grid to use my battery down to a pre-set limit to top-up the grid supply, and to pay me for the electricity used at near to the rate applying at the time it is used. This might prevent the Cornish landscape being filled with wind turbine views, although it may be too late! If I read the website correctly, Smart Grid offers this function, although I don't see any payment involved, so nearly there! Perhaps this is where they make their money?

Last and least of all, a Smart Meter to report my consumption frequently to allow the power company to bill me accurately, which is all the present smart meter seems to be able to do! My present supply company emails me reminders to enter online readings at regular intervals of around 3 months. I send them in at the same time as my FIT readings and it seems to work well.

What does the Green Building Panel think?

Thanks Niall for the link - its interesting, more or less what I was thinking of.

Steamy, its not a great website, could do with a proof read for sure. I think the calculator is for the commerical / industrial offersing rather than the domestic storage part, but their lack of obvious terms and conditions is glaring. I presume that there must be an agreement for the domestic customer to give this company some money for some sort of service or to take a quantity of electricity, otherwise essentially what is is in it for them?

I'm going to get in touch I think as it could be genuinely useful for us and I am also curious.

The bit that is lacking for me is the automatic switching within the home - e.g., the battery is at 80% capacity and the panels are generating away nicely, where is the automation to switch on the washing machine / dishwasher / heat pump / immersion going to fit in as realistically this isn't really in the best interests of a commercial electricity supplier is it?

The IoT / data sharing point is valid but I assume a more efficient load balancing / sharing system is going to have to be co-ordinated from somewhere and that's going to need data from individual users?

Posted By: JamsterActually, having done a bit of sniffing around into Smart Grid

Give us a clue and I shall see if my intuition is still good

The term I use is 'chancers', but then so are people that invest though Crowd Sourcing sites without checking details.
As you said:

Posted By: JamsterThe internet can be good for something after all