How to reduce national peak electricity demand:-

Smart plugs (web linked plugs) to control domestic washing machines and freezers.

These would stop freezers working during peak demand periods, on their own these would save us a power station if everyone had one, not impossible.

Similarly not using washing machines during peak demand would greatly help us.

We have a problem meeting peak demand but the system easily copes most of the time.

There could be financial incentives or laws to assist us, either would work.

It's heating that does the damage...
(and OVERheating...).

Solar thermal air can go a long way towards reducing heating demand.

It's just a question of getting the word out...

gg

I think the main problem is overheating and associated heat losses.
I easily saved 30% of my domestic usage, then another 20% with a tiny bit of technology.

We aren't going to get anywhere by telling people they are using too much energy. At best that's only going to be a sticking plaster, and a politically unacceptable one.

We simply have to fix the system; the domestic housing stock.

Posted By: gyrogear

Posted By: tonySolar can't help much with heating demand as the sun shines the least when the heat is needed the most

well the answer to that is a no-brainer: capture the heat while it's there, and store it for later...
à la Drake Landing...

Out of interest what latitude do you live at?

I believe Drake Landing is near Calgary, so just about spot on 51N. That's about the same latitude as Winchester, making Drake Landing South of the great majority of the UK.

I think solar energy is great, but it's not evenly distributed and that has to be considered...

So when do we start building then ?

And how many per annum?

It'll be while - so time to dust off a few big thermal generation units that we've shut down of late

Barney

Posted By: fostertomIn mainland UK incl even plucky little Scotland, given favourable view of low southern sky (i.e. fairly unobstructed above 20o elevation), solar collection is adequate for the spaceheating requirement of a near-PH right thro mid winter, given attainable thermal storage capacity (i.e. not talking batteries). Tho not for water heating.

Not sure where you get your 20 degrees from. According some notes I happe to have to hand, on Dec 21st here at 57N the Sun manages 9 degrees at solar noon. IIRC it doesn't reach an elevation of 20 degrees till some time in Feb?

PS. I'm happy to say that we are blessed with a less than 5 degree horizon from E through S to (nearly) W, so we get good passive solar gain any time there is any. If we had a 20 degree horizon our heating bill would be much greater.

Edit: typo had => hand.

Monitoring my own peaks in power consumption it is the washing machine, dishwasher, oven and kettle that are to blame. Even when my 3kW PV is running at max these devices need top up fom the grid. These peaks could be reduced if only they heated slower and spread the energy over a longer time i.e. were less powerful, but it seems no one is designing appliances for that.

Where are the insulated ovens that modulate the element at a lower frequency? Why don't we all have camping kettles? etc. Hot feed washing machines taking DHW from my TS or a 500W element rather than a 3kW one, let alone the smart plug. Everyone looks at the total energy consumed, so costs of boiling a kettle make it trivial, but no one looks at the true cost of the instantaneous demands these devices make. The cumulative effect of kettles is why the National Grid still check the TV shedules for tea-making time advert breaks in popular programmes.

It is not about tell people to use less energy, although it would be great if they did, but about our devices being *intelligently designed* to spread the load over a longer period.

Peak demand for the nation is the combination of us all switching things on at the same time, were we to delay some of these then peak power would drop, lower powered appliances does not make a perceivable difference.

Posted By: tonyPeak demand for the nation is the combination of us all switching things on at the same time, were we to delay some of these then peak power would drop, lower powered appliances does not make a perceivable difference.

Lower power appliances does not change the overal energy consumption, but it would lower the peaks. Over the PV generating season it is only those peaks that mean I import energy. The highest peak is when we all go and make tea at the same time on a cold dark day, usually during Xmas. The kettle is neligable for total household power consumption, but synchronised boiling is significant when you have millions of households doing it.

I don't think low powered kettles would do anything to change the shape or height of the peak assumming the same ammount of energy was used

eg. 3 kW for ther mins = 1 kW for 9 mins. No difference when a large number of consumers are doing it, it would be slightly annoying for many.

There is a case to made that in the 9 min case heat losses during boiling would be greater using more energy in total raising the height of the peak, exactly the opposite of what was intended!

Variable commercial tariffs would be far more effective - domestically we tend not to have that much choice

An example would be to create ice slurry at night for a store of coolth rather than running heat pumps during the diurnal peak - after we stop bloody architects designing south facing glass boxes of course

Barney

Posted By: skyewrightNot sure where you get your 20 degrees from

It was from memory - I'll check when I have a moment to dive into PVGIS.
The principle is that sun power w/m2 on optimally inclined receiver, below a certain angle of sun elevation, regardless of location or season, isn't worth collecting, so horizon obstructions below that elevation are unimportant.

Posted By: renewablejohnEasiest way to reduce peak demand is to stagger regional TV output by 5 minutes per region then channel timings by 1 minute within region using extended commercial break of say 5 minutes for on the hour changeover time so you dont miss the start of a programme.

"Live" TV is just a odd concept once you have a reasonable hard disk based recorder, we don't watch adverts these days.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: tony</cite>I can't see staggering making sufficient difference unless it is by several hours.

Stop drinking hot drinks might help.

The peak is the sum of everything that we are doing, moving a use by a few minutes does not have an impact.</blockquote>

Dont believe it a matter of minutes makes all the difference just look at just one episode of eastenders to understand the problem the National Grid has and its only a UK phenomenum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTM2Ck6XWHg