The changing way we use the immersion heater could mess up
@JohnW2 argument, yes my immersion rated 3 kW, but rare it uses 3 kW, most times when I look I see something like this
by time there is enough sun to run at 3 kW the water is already hot.
As said before I think the iboost+ was an error, as once we get the export payment sorted out, we will get more for exporting than we pay to import in the middle of the night, so the best option is likely to have a simple timer which turns on the immersion during off peak, which means it runs around 1 am to 5 am, a time when we are rather unlikely to use the sockets.
The changes are not just immersion heater, lighting has so little load today with the use of LED lighting. And also the lighting load has moved to sockets, the 150 watt tungsten bulb in centre of my living room may have worked, by time we moved in pearl 150 watt bulbs were long gone, even swapping the single pendent to a 8 bulb chandelier so 48 watt of LED light, the light was too much weighted into the centre of the room, no easy access into ceiling/upper floor space, so we fitted cabinet lights to light the dark area of the room
these are powered from sockets, and we use google Nest Mini and voice control to turn them on when required, well mainly it is the turn off option, so one voice command turns off all living room lights as we leave the room, with these and up lighters, spot lights etc. The total wattage for living room is more like 120 watt, so much for LED's using less power!
But the whole diversity question is complex, my cooker is rated 12455 watt, however clearly with an induction hob it uses less than the cooker it replaced, so it still says use a 32 amp supply even if it can use 54 amp. I do not think I have used boost other than to compare speed to boil water when compared with gas, around twice as fast, the saying "Now were cooking on gas" now means the reverse to what it did when I was a child.
We had cabinet lights in the last house, never used, as the switch was not handy, this house rare they are not used at some point in the day, and the kitchen socket load has also changed a lot, deep fat frier, air frier, filter coffee maker, microwaves, pressure cookers, all using sockets, and the stand alone cooker hardly used. The air frier does so much, a lasagna single serving cooks great in it, using a fraction of the power to run the main oven.
I do find it needs some education however, my wife would start jacketed potatoes in the microwave and then complete with the pizza in the oven, the problem is a micro wave uses power in the main the whole time it is running, however the air frier uses power to get hot, then one switches on a few time after for a very short time to maintain the temperature, so all in all uses less power.
Since I was a lad the whole way of living seems to have changed, we had louvered windows to keep the kitchen cool, the Aga was never out for long, coke was a by product from the steel works, and was very cheap, it would be dumped on out drive entrance ½ ton at a time, some times more, and as a lad it was my job to use the wheel barrow to get it in the bunkers at back of house. All cooking was done on the Aga, which had dampers to adjust how the oven was heated, similar to today's ovens with electric, so much more controllable than gas, but the hot plate was down to where one put the pan, it needed some skill to use, including when to put the hot plate covers down. And the side boiler heated the DHW and a radiator in my bedroom, the only radiator in the house.
Kitchen floor was quarry tiled so one could if required rake out the fire, house poor designed as the living room fire would draw air through the house so we had easy chairs with high backs so we did not feel the draft. Small holes and a tray built into the steel window frames to direct condensation from the windows outside.
And the ring final was wired in 7/0.029 which was larger than the 2.5 mm² used today, so spur off a spur was not really a problem, yes still could be overloaded, but also fuse was 30 amp not 32 amp, and the line pin of the 13 amp plug was solid brass so would conduct heat from the fuse away from the plug far better. And bakelite was also a better colour to radiate heat to white plastic.
And electric flowed from positive to negative, it was only as I got older it reversed, then as I got older still found it alternated.
I had a dynamo on my bike that produces AC, but the dynamo on the car produced DC. Do you remember the tubes with batteries to keep lights on when you stopped on the bike? How did they work when dynamo produced AC?
