Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[Gibbo2286]

Perhaps you can come up with a good reason why the meters can be switched off remotely, Gibbo ?

I've never even considered that bobins and I'm not in the least worried about it, I recall however losing my shop's frozen food a number of times through power failures when the supplier was one of the old 'Boards' and the power went out for hours/days before it was restored. They said "You should be insured." the insurers said "Only if you have a service contract for your fridges. " which of course cost annually more than the losses were worth.

I'm waiting now for the energy market to settle so that I can get a deal that will make full use of the solar panels to charge the car.

[myglaren]

I thought that I had posted Big Clive's smart meter tear down.
Anyway, here it is:-

[Rp0thejester]

Well electricity suppliers can unfortunately charge what they like as no one can stop them. Especially now it's all about stop using fossil fuels and the anti russian oil. With electric cars becoming more popular and the slow rollout of electric forecourts from the major petrol/diesel suppliers at home electricity suppliers are gunna cash in on it. What choice do we have apart from pay it? Go back to candles, no phones etc. Just out of interest, does anyone here have an electric company car? If so, do the company pay the charge cost when charging at home?

[NewcastleFalcon]

This is the type of thing we consider on the thread and form our own opinions on. Only watched the opening couple of minutes on it and none of the detail. I'm quite happy listening to Bobby Llewelyn so I'll give it the full run through and see what has to be said.

On the surface of the intro, the premise of having something that "looks" like your gas boiler, and "looks" to be an easy plug in and replace job when the time comes to ditch the gas boiler, would again "look" to be something of interest.

Its recent, July 2022, so hopefully all the difficult questions will be covered.
Our latest fixed offering from Scottish Power for 1 year to August 2023 (not that we will be taking it up) was

Gas 16.98p/kWh Electricity 51.16p/kWh

I will view the video with that in my mind.



Regards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

The information I most needed in that Neil came right at the end the 'combi boiler' I have a gas combi boiler so no hot water tank and until they address that it doesn't work for me.

[mickthemaverick]

This is the type of thing we consider on the thread and form our own opinions on. Only watched the opening couple of minutes on it and none of the detail. I'm quite happy listening to Bobby Llewelyn so I'll give it the full run through and see what has to be said.

Regards Neil

As ever with Fully Charged videos I found that an interesting watch. I like the concept which ties in with my current musings on energy storage which doesn't use batteries. In theory with a sufficient area of solar panels and maybe a domestic wind generator this technology, when available in combi form, may well make us able to run our heating and hot water free of charge!! That certainly is an appealing thought but will require many stubby pencils and fag packets to decipher the time period to actually become free after offsetting the infrastructure purchase and installation costs. I have signed up to Tepeo for updates until they are able to quote for the equipment!!

[Gibbo2286]

After posting this morning I thought about it a bit more.. when my combi boiler was first installed they took out the hot water tank but I think all the piping is still there, just capped off, maybe I could put a tank back in and use the Tepeo as it is now instead of waiting.

[mickthemaverick]

After posting this morning I thought about it a bit more.. when my combi boiler was first installed they took out the hot water tank but I think all the piping is still there, just capped off, maybe I could put a tank back in and use the Tepeo as it is now instead of waiting.

Clearly that is an option for you Gibbo, although I would have thought that the extra cost of a new tank and the additional plumbing work required set against the old hot tank system issues of, "Have a shower later, the water's not hot yet" and "damn it my darling daughter has used all the hot water!" etc. may make it worth the wait for a Combi model to be launched. I know I would not want to go back to that one because simply having a hot tank introduces another target for thermal loss. I also have the feeling that they are already inundated by requests for a combi which may drive the development forward and make it available sooner!

[Gibbo2286]

I've got a Triton electric shower Mick so not dependent on the boiler or the tank.

[mickthemaverick]

I've got a Triton electric shower Mick so not dependent on the boiler or the tank.

So do we Gibbo but at 9.5kw that's the biggest single gobbler of current that we own and as we have no solar yet and tend to shower in the peak periods that was the first cut we made, now using the over bath shower which is fed from the combi!!

[mickthemaverick]

A thought occurred to me this morning about energy. As we know there is considerable effort and resources being thrown at converting the planet's sustainable sources into usable electricity, Solar, Wind, Wave, Gravity etc but as far as I am aware there is no research looking into another abundant source of energy which is all around us and which we already have the technology to convert it to electricity. All that is needed is a viable way of scaling our existing technology up to meet our needs. Anyone know what I am thinking of?

[NewcastleFalcon]

All that is needed is a viable way of scaling our existing technology up to meet our needs. Anyone know what I am thinking of?

I could have a guess

Would it involve a transducer, and need a considerable amount of scaling up.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... RIC_ENERGY

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Indeed it would Neil
Obviously I am not the first person to think of it but I couldn't be bothered to go looking for the evidence of the idea which you have found. It just struck me after watching Skull's video on the Hydrogen thread that the production of Hydrogen from Methane produced solid Carbon which needs to be used or stored safely. Initially I thought why not use the Carbon to make Carbon Fibre but after a quick browse of that I dismissed the idea as it does not start with solid Carbon. My next thought was to pound it into granules and manufacture Carbon Granule microphones but that would not have a great demand. At that point I dropped my thought train from the Carbon and diverted onto microphones realising that they are one device which converts sound to an electric wave which needs a current supply to work so not much use!! In which case a material like piezo may well be the way to go but the basic principle of converting all the noise around us to usable electricity seems worth some research to me!!

[RichardW]

On the surface of the intro, the premise of having something that "looks" like your gas boiler, and "looks" to be an easy plug in and replace job when the time comes to ditch the gas boiler, would again "look" to be something of interest.


Regards Neil

Re the ZEB... There's nothing magic about this, it doesn't generate any 'free' energy. A quick look suggests that Off peak Electric is around 3 times the price of gas, so this would cost 3 times as much to run as a gas boiler - even if the 40 kWh was enough for your daily needs, if you needed more during the day, then Peak is more like 4.5 times the price. Granted you could store Solar PV in it, but you don't make much of that in the winter when you the need the heating demand. At least with a heat pump, there is some vestige of something for free as it has an effective efficiency on electric use of >100% at least when it's not too cold outside! Neither, however, will be gracing my house any time soon....

[bobins]

Re the ZEB... There's nothing magic about this, it doesn't generate any 'free' energy. A quick look suggests that Off peak Electric is around 3 times the price of gas, so this would cost 3 times as much to run as a gas boiler - even if the 40 kWh was enough for your daily needs, if you needed more during the day, then Peak is more like 4.5 times the price. Granted you could store Solar PV in it, but you don't make much of that in the winter when you the need the heating demand. At least with a heat pump, there is some vestige of something for free as it has an effective efficiency on electric use of >100% at least when it's not too cold outside! Neither, however, will be gracing my house any time soon....

You and your joined up thinking, Richard How are we ever going to get out of this mess if you insist on using reasoned thought ?