There has been a lot of discussion about wind power recently with the main underlying concern being that there still needs to the maximum demand available via other means of generation.

BUT WHAT IF I was prepared to use my washing machine only on windy days? or to adapt my usage depending on availability?

It is possible for us now to buy green electricity from a meter that allows heavier use on windy days or times. The so called green companies need to get to grips with this idea and start marketing smart meters and appliances.

Additionally they could also sell band rated supplies, i.e. lower rates on windy days and graduated rates on other days/times linked to supply.
The technology is available so why isnt it being used?

It could even be that it would pay me to store some of the cheapest ( or free? ) electricity for my own use when the rate is higher?

Is there a willingness anywhere to change the way we buy or sell electricity, or to make lifestyle changes?

The Danes are testing a system that will use huge cold storage facilities to buffer energy usage: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/night_wind_proj.php

Hi,
Before going over to a cheap rate tariff you need to look at the usage in the different time periods. When on cheap rate you will pay higher standing charge and higher peak usage than the flat rates.

So using a spreadsheet, work out how much Kwhr you need to consume overnight and the savings made, and then compare this to the extra cost of daytime usage and increased charges. You can then work out how much you actually need to use overnight to still be in profit after the extra daytime has been paid.

I haven’t done this for a while with whatever deals are around, but previously I was surprised how much I needed to use. Running the washing machine every night didn’t use enough to justify it. Most domestic hot water cylinders on gas/oil central heating have an immersion heater, but this is generally viewed as a back up. Is heating a cylinder of water on cheap rate elec, cheaper than doing so with oil/gas? Only if the pence per unit elec is cheaper than the pence per Kwhr from oil or gas.

Oil is 44p/lit at the moment so at say 80% boiler efficiency that’s 5.5p per Kwhr (44p/10KwHr per lit / 0.8), which is probably a bit more than cheap rate elec, but not much. The breakeven is about 35p/lit. Not sure about gas as I don’t live in the “suburbs”. The problem is that although the cost of this is reduced, there has to be a similar reduction in daytime elec usage other wise the overall cost for all energy will go up due to the increased rate for daytime usage when cheap nigh time is used. It becomes quite a complicated scenario.

It’ll be quite close, and that will be offset by increased daytime charges. This I suppose would suit the out all day commuter rather than the at home worker + kids

Obviously one should endeavour to minimise energy usage, but reducing it to bare cost does allow comparison to be made.

If it were me on my own I could probably adapt to suit, but it difficult to do so with family and kids, not because they don’t want to, but because of the outside influences on the schedules i.e. school etc etc

Cheers, Mike up North

Posted By: tonyThere has been a lot of discussion about wind power recently with the main underlying concern being that there still needs to the maximum demand available via other means of generation.

Have your own PV as well, for a start - that'll do a lot to even out your supply.

To be offgrid or anywhere near it you have to undergo a radical rethink of how you use energy and live day to day. Doing this can actually give you a better standard of living but make you unpopular with your friends and family as you can become an energy bore.

It certainly makes these awful wet and windy days more tolerable though. On days like these (just as on sunny days) I look to do energy intensive jobs like making bread, washing or a having a cook-in. yes our cooker is electric (or wood on doldrum days). Fridges and freezers and washing machines are not appliances that can be turned on or off depending on voltage but cookers and toasters are.

Lifestyle changes (most of the recommendations below will actually improve your health also):
Do less washing
Take less baths
Travel less
Have a family party every time the wind blows or the sun comes out (if you have the technology).
Eat less food
Chop wood with an axe
Insulate you house to the extreme and open windows at every sensible opportunity.

"Fridges and freezers ... are not appliances that can be turned on or off depending on voltage"

Clearly you can't let the fridge or freezer get too warm but suppose you had a suitable phase change material (PCM) in the freezer with a melting point around -20°C then when electricity is easily available you set the thermostat to -22°C but when your electrons are a bit more sluggish you wop the thermostat setting up to -18°C. There would be a long delay before the thermostat cut in as the PCM melted absorbing heat. With any luck the electrons would liven up again by themselves before you have to get them to do any serious refrigeration.

I suggested this idea on a mailing list with the thought of using vegetable oil as the PCM. Somebody else suggested saline solution - appropriately calibrated to the temperature required.

Of course, ice is the ideal phase change material. Would work well for a fridge, less well for a freezer - unless it's a salt solution which handily freezes at -18C. In the long run, it's probably better to have more insulation since any PCM material just evens out the peaks and troughs in electrical availability. Insulation would do the same - especially as the heat capacity of the stuff in the freeze will likely be much larger than the thermal inertia stored in the PCM.

Paul in Montreal.

Wandering off a bit, but maybe of interest. Shopping done twice monthly, 6 pint cartons of milk packed into freezer. Carton out of freezer into top of fridge to defrost over 2-3 days and (presumably) saving fridge juice usage rather than letting milk defrost in kitchen.

Posted By: dicksterShopping done twice monthly, 6 pint cartons of milk packed into freezer. Carton out of freezer into top of fridge to defrost over 2-3 days and (presumably) saving fridge juice usage rather than letting milk defrost in kitchen.

Except you had to expend some juice in the first place to freeze the milk so there's no nett saving assuming the both the fridge and freezer are inside the heated envelope of your house.

Paul in Montreal.

Hi Stroudy

I am one of the participants in the Demand for Wind project... The monitoring kit is a bit clunky at present (science lab stuff based on xPL if that means anything to you). It allows you to control your washing machine (or whatever) via a "ByeBye Standby" device. You can set it to trigger on overnight if there is a surplus of wind (according to DFW) or at the latest by a time you set. It works, but its a bit of a pain to set up.

Going back to an earlier comment on freezers... I read a while ago on one that was mains-frequency sensitive. It worked on the theory that if electricity demand is high then the mains frequency drops ever-so slightly. This is detected by the fridge and it suppresses the thermostat switching on the compressor until the frequency rises again or the temperature drops too far for safety. AIRI the debate was about who would pay for this technology if it cost extra?

Plenty of ideas around...

I've often wondered about the electricity cost of a septic tank. We have one and there's no electricity involved in any way so we're fortunate.

We changed our lifestyle fairly drastically [for us!] and the electricity usage dropped like a stone. We pay about £35/month and lately we're getting money back The main change has been not using the electric stove, switching off lights and just not using them if at all possible, ensuring that anything we buy is as highly rated as we can afford, and that's about it. We don't use electricity for heating, apart from individual room heaters in the depths of winter - and we wear a lot of fleece between October and the end of May

I'd be happy to put the washing machine, fridge or freezer on demand led usage, probably the television as well - but not my computer, I'm lost without the net .....

Changing the input voltage to a switch mode power supply doesn't change the power consumption significantly. That's kind of the point.