Interesting (to me anyway!) Appliance Signatures and Consumption

This is a graph from the Owl Intuition device I have just attached to my Owl transmitter. The data is from a clamp on to the feed cable to my electricity meter.
I linked the Owl transmitter to the Intuition receiver plugged into a Devolo broadband repeater. My broadband routers are 20 metres and around 3 metres of cob wall away from the transmitter, so no chance of a direct link!
I can now read the real-time data anywhere with an internet connection.
The graph starts at around 10:12 on 20th Feb and runs for two hours.
The initial base load is around 350 Watts, which is with two routers, TV aerial amplifiers, lights, and assorted fridges and freezers on. I am not proud of this level of base consumption!
The first sharp peak is an electric kettle, on for around one minute. The smoothing in the Owl software makes it look longer.
The subsequent long peak and smaller ones around every ten minutes are the washing machine.
It makes disaggregation (identifying demand from specific appliances) look fairly easy - but in practice it is not as easy as it looks, as several companies are discovering.

Who Benefits from Rational Electricity Time-of-Use?

If "we" stand to gain £56 billion from 7GW less of nuclear capacity by rational electricity time-of-use, who benefits? Who are "we"?
In the end, we all gain, either as bill-payers or as taxpayers, or as members of their households.
The suppliers will benefit in the short term by paying lower half-hourly wholesale prices at peak times.

Wind Exceeds Coal and Equals Nuclear over a day for the Second Time this Year.

UK Electricity Production to 6th Feb 2017.

On the Past Month chart,- third from the left - you can see that on 2nd Feb 2017. wind power - green - exceed coal - black - and virtually equalled nuclear - brown.

Whilst this is a major achievement, it was little more than momentary - wind is not and never will be a predictable source of electricity.

To make better use of it, we need to substantially shift the time we use electricity.

An excellent start is to stop using it for non-time sensitive devices -dishwashers, washing machines, tumble driers, immersion heaters - during the 3-8pm peak in UK

Happy timeshifting! Tell your friends you are doing it - it makes a difference.

Heat and Transport need Urgent Decarbonization

Do you think there are problems with the decarbonization of electricity?
Well there are now!
Heat and transport are a long way behind electricity in decarbonizing.
And it will probably be electric solutions that enable them to make progress.
Electric cars, heat pumps and CHP heat all depend on and will increase demand for electricity.
The only way the grid can cope with this is massive domestic demand response.
So get time-shifting now!
Early adopters like you and I are the necessary beginning to this process.

Production peaking at a remarkably stable 50GW

Peak production over the last week has been bumping along as if there were an upper cap of 50 GW. Is this a chance event, or has the National Grid been leaning on big consumers?

The 3-8pm peak remains, though, but at an agreeably lower level of 5GW above daytime consumption. Hooray! Any comments on how much this is by accident and how much by design?

Peak demand lower at 50GW, but 7GW rise remains

UK National Grid Production at 0930 on Thursday 12th January 2017.

Demand peaked at 50.2 GW on 5th January 2017, an encouragingly low level. Total average demand continues to trend down thanks to energy efficiency, LED's etc.
But the peak of 7GW in the early evening remains - we are better at efficiency than we are at demand side response.
But DSR is easier to achieve once we have sufficient awareness of its low cost and high value.
So keep time-shifting and keep telling your friends!

Green Energy Introduces a Domestic Time-of-Use Tariff

Green Energy Domestic Time-of-Use tariff 1st Jan 2017.

On New Year's Day, Green Energy announced the first 3 price domestic time of use tariff in UK .

Costs are:

Peak       24.99p   16:00-19:00 weekdays

Off Peak  4.99p    23:00-06:00 every night

Normal   11.99p  at all other times

I currently pay 17.6p normal and 5p off peak, on Ecotricity's new Energy Plus tariff. I calculate that ignoring the off peak I would need to use less than 43% of my electricity at peak times to make it worth changing. Unfortunately I am outside the radio range required by smart meters, so I can't switch.

As a fully signed up geek, I am happy to do this calculation, and to measure my hourly consumption using an Owl USB meter.
I wonder how many of us are willing or able to do that?
The simplest thing to do is to use less electricity at peak times, whatever the tariff you are on!