Peter Sarf
Established Member
I reckon most people will not bother cutting back voluntarily. Not unless there is a rebate for doing so. I reckon the newspapers etc will be publishing times and areas for power cuts and then you might be lucky if any individual power cut is not actioned or is curtailed.I too got easily have the heating off for 3 hours, but it is gas so not going to make much difference as only the pumps etc using electric
Can avoid using tumble dryer, don’t yet have an electric car, only ever do laundry in morning, but do have electric ovens and induction hob and normally eat around 6pm so going to use oven during premium period.
To be honest, in 2 or 3 years probably change to an electric car, would be happy to have solar panels, and one of those battery storage units (power wall?), and so would rather have my current Government heating subsidy as a grant towards something that will give me benefit for multiple winters, once that is all fitted and I can set it to use stored power rather than grid power at times happy to have different tariffs at different times of day.
A better use for the energy subsidy would have been insulating more homes. Granted energy efficiency schemes might not produce results soon enough. But they would be a simple way to reduce what we use in the first place rather than papering over the cracks. Instead we are paying money to people so they can carry on using what we are short of !.
Surely as the UK is on a national grid there should be not much regional variation in availability of electricity ?.Yes, I was thinking of something like a Red/Amber/Green rating for each hour. Green would mean there's plenty of power so things like tumble drying should take place during these times. Amber would be that there's enough power, but don't shift activities here from the Red hours. Red would mean there is a significant risk and people should make every effort to reduce consumption.
They could allow people to sign up for alerts to warn them when red hours have been declared. Depending on how many red hours there are, they could also be communicated through the media, e.g. an extra map at the end of the weather forecast.
No need for this amber red stuff online/livre. It is all fairly predictable. See the graph in the post by @Domhy245 below.Yes, I was thinking of something like a Red/Amber/Green rating for each hour. Green would mean there's plenty of power so things like tumble drying should take place during these times. Amber would be that there's enough power, but don't shift activities here from the Red hours. Red would mean there is a significant risk and people should make every effort to reduce consumption.
They could allow people to sign up for alerts to warn them when red hours have been declared. Depending on how many red hours there are, they could also be communicated through the media, e.g. an extra map at the end of the weather forecast.
Basically need to cut back during 16:00-19:00 (so red). But 08:00-16:00 would be worth avoiding (so amber)
You mean, a genuinely useful way to manage demand and therefore reduce generation costs and challenges?
Only if they get the pricing wrong, and lock it in. The idea is to turn the evening peak into a lower but more sustained demand (flattening the curve, if you will..) - so the normal drop that would occur is replaced by the "surge" as the shifted demand comes on - electricity demand is fairly well understood by this point, so hopefully they'll be able to set the prices at the right levels to achieve the desired effect
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Quite possibly, but then again people have been doing overnight laundry to take advantage of economy 7 rates since the late 70s. Of course, given the advanced notice people are given of the need to demand shift, some people may be able to do their laundry earlier in the day to achieve the same effect, or immediately after the end of their reduction period - no need to default straight to 5AM!
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