Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[NewcastleFalcon]

Many years ago I put in a 12 volt supply "Lucas Freelight" to a friends caravan who lived in the wilds of St Mary Cray, it ran the lights and other things OK but an electric blanket was mentioned. No inverters in those days just very inefficient rotary converters or vibrator packs. I got a fair length of the old clear flat plastic flex only it was new then, the chaps wife sewed it into a blanket and it worked a treat, after a bit of Ohms law.

Peter

Nice story Peter you can still find DIY electric blankets instructions on the internet

With a 100 Watt Electric blanket, for the use of a single kilowatt/hour you could get 10 hours warmth from an electric blanket at price frozen rates of 34p from October. 182 days between October 1st and March 31st.

£61.88 for a Winters warmth.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Very appropriate from the archives of the Pickled Egg, circa 2015

Fracking is in the news again today and as ever the Pickled Egg has its finger on the pulse



and with snow on the way apparently, yet another topical marketing ploy to boost trade



regards Neil

[Peter.N.]

Many years ago I put in a 12 volt supply "Lucas Freelight" to a friends caravan who lived in the wilds of St Mary Cray, it ran the lights and other things OK but an electric blanket was mentioned. No inverters in those days just very inefficient rotary converters or vibrator packs. I got a fair length of the old clear flat plastic flex only it was new then, the chaps wife sewed it into a blanket and it worked a treat, after a bit of Ohms law.

Peter

I do that now. I turn the blanket up full before I get up and providing it doesn't send me back to sleep Im nice and warm when I get up so I don't need the 1kw heater on in the bathroom. Mind you I still do if its sunny as we have solar panels.

Nice story Peter you can still find DIY electric blankets instructions on the internet

With a 100 Watt Electric blanket, for the use of a single kilowatt/hour you could get 10 hours warmth from an electric blanket at price frozen rates of 34p from October. 182 days between October 1st and March 31st.

£61.88 for a Winters warmth.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Onshore wind farms, eased planning rules

The "Growth Plan" states the government will ‘bring onshore wind planning policy in line with other infrastructure to allow it to be deployed more easily in England’.

With renewable power now as much as nine times cheaper than gas-derived electricity, the blueprint also envisages uncoupling gas’s wholesale cost from other inputs in dictating retail prices for power. Bosses of renewables firms have welcomed the reform.

Greg Jackson of Octopus energy commented
“Octopus Energy will act fast to bring wind farms and lower bills to areas where communities want them.

“Onshore wind is cheap and incredibly popular with Brits”, the Octopus boss went on. ”More than 13,000 people have asked Octopus for a wind farm in their area.

“But unnecessary red tape has meant it has taken on average seven years to build and connect a new onshore wind farm. In reality, they can be built in months”, Jackson asserted.

Last year Octopus launched its Fan Club, billed as the world’s first local energy tariff from a major supplier. Customers living in the same postcode as an Octopus turbine can benefit when the wind blows by as much as half off their power bills.

https://octopus.energy/octopus-fan-club/



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Do it yourself Nice little experiment with a Bargain Basement Micra Fan!



and a move on to a 1kW job


REgards Neil

[bobins]

Onshore wind farms, eased planning rules

The "Growth Plan" states the government will ‘bring onshore wind planning policy in line with other infrastructure to allow it to be deployed more easily in England’.

With renewable power now as much as nine times cheaper than gas-derived electricity, the blueprint also envisages uncoupling gas’s wholesale cost from other inputs in dictating retail prices for power. Bosses of renewables firms have welcomed the reform.


Regards Neil

Whilst it's undoubtedly good to capture as much 'free' energy as possible with the wind farms, it still doesn't get round the problem of their unreliability. In the last few days we've had total combined wind output dribble to way less than 1GW out of a theoretical 20+ GW capability - it was down to between 0.6 & 0.7GW for a while. Coal and 'open' gas generation have been used a lot to fill the gaps, Biomass has been going near flat out - I know biomass is supposed to be green, but in reality it isn't. We've been unable to rely on European electricity imports as they're in the same boat with low wind - and this has been going on for over a month. It's a case of build wind turbines, but also keep the coal and gas burning and on standby as we really do need them.

On a side note, I do wonder how energy companies (Octopus et al) manage with their 'green' energy tariffs when we don't actually have that much 'green' energy being produced at times. Is it in the small print that they'll supply 'green' energy when it's available, but if it ain't, you get what your given ?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Whilst it's undoubtedly good to capture as much 'free' energy as possible with the wind farms, it still doesn't get round the problem of their unreliability. It's a case of build wind turbines, but also keep the coal and gas burning and on standby as we really do need them.

More important than ever now to build strategic reserves, whether for gas or for storage of wind and solar generated energy. Depending on your view this may be regarded as an impossible task to create enough storage to cover extended periods of downtime on solar and wind generation, but some is better than none, and building up more storage capacity is vital to the nations "energy security".

Development of strategic storage has been missing from any auction of rights to develop windfarms offshore or onshore in the UK, and as a result the existing and in the pipeline wind-generation potential is currently ineffectively used. Maybe a simple, from now on, minimum storage requirement could be specified, for every auction of offshore or onshore areas for development of wind farms.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

While the current research in the sustainable energy generation and storage is commendable, I cannot stop thinking that more funding and effort should be directed at the general public reducing their demand for energy. The measures we have implemented in Maverick Manor have reduced our energy requirement by 40-50% withoiut impingeing on our life style at all. Encouragement for all households to make similar adjustments would make a significant reduction in the overall load on the grid and thereby ease the situation.

The next stage in our drive for reduced energy demand may involve some sacrifices which will be motivated by cost saving rather than environmental concerns but the effect would be the same. People need to take a close look at their energy demand and decide how much is actually necessary and of that how much can be done more efficiently like our reduction of total lighting wattage from 1596 to 176!!

[bobins]

Much depends on what actual mix of energy you want - 'green' vs 'conventional', but to make up the gaps in non-generation of wind power you'd need a phenomenal amount of energy storage. Here's the graph for the last week and month showing the wind component in blue.

Wind generation - Gridwatch

We've got a theoretical maximum output of 20GW for wind, but as you can see it's barely made it about 10GW, and for most of the time it's been well below that. If you want to create a meaningful stored energy component then you're going to have to greatly increase electricity generation capabilities above what we've already so you can 'charge up' that stored infrastructure.

I've been keeping an eye on the Gridwatch website for the past few weeks - at times we've been running the gas, coal and biomass plants relatively hard to make up for the 'green' shortfalls, but we've also been exporting an impressive amount to Europe as they've got their own energy issues to deal with as well and we've been assisting where possible.

[bobins]

While the current research in the sustainable energy generation and storage is commendable, I cannot stop thinking that more funding and effort should be directed at the general public reducing their demand for energy. The measures we have implemented in Maverick Manor have reduced our energy requirement by 40-50% withoiut impingeing on our life style at all. Encouragement for all households to make similar adjustments would make a significant reduction in the overall load on the grid and thereby ease the situation.

Many years ago (30 years ago ??) I saw a very interesting pseudo-documentary by James Burke (he of Tomorrow's World, Connections, etc), I think it was called something like 'After the Global Warming'. He came to a very similar conclusion to you, Mick, though his was more.... "more funding and effort should be directed at reducing the general public" It makes for a very thought provoking film if it's still out there and available somewhere - it comes highly recommended by me, what more could you want ?

[mickthemaverick]

I think this is the film you are referring to bobins:

[NewcastleFalcon]

I cannot stop thinking that more funding and effort should be directed at the general public reducing their demand for energy. The measures we have implemented in Maverick Manor have reduced our energy requirement by 40-50% withoiut impingeing on our life style at all. Encouragement for all households to make similar adjustments would make a significant reduction in the overall load on the grid and thereby ease the situation.

Ditto Chez Falcon haven't quite gone for the leccy blankets which do seem decent value to run but the typhoon hob kettle, and washing line are working well, and the miserly use of the gas boiler by switching it off except for a bit of showering. It pre-heats the hot water to a minimum of 25°C by firing up at regular intervals throughout the day and night if you let it, only way to stop it is to switch it off, no adjustment provided or possible.

regards Neil

[bobins]

I think this is the film you are referring to bobins:

Blimey, Mick, a blast from the past. I can remember when those were cutting-edge graphics
Ta.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Having Discovered Robert Murray Smith in connection with his DIY wind turbines and until Strictly Come Dancing intervened got up to video 7 in his 1kW turbine build for under £100, plenty of interest and other energy related projects on his youtube channel to discover.

Robert Murray Smith-Channel

Regards Neil

[bobins]

Harry Metcalfe is always worth watching both for his Harry's Garage and Harry's Farm Youtube channels. On his Harry's Farm channel he's just had installed a commercial installation of 18kw of solar panels onto the farm buildings - the reason he's done it.... 'cos it's the right thing to do Although he's only getting a measly 3kw on a partly cloudy day at the moment

The first 7 minutes of this concerns the ins and outs of the installation.