That's a rather intriguing one, which hadn't occurred to me - essentially the generators/suppliers paying consumers for short-term storage of electricity.
| Import | Export | |
| Day rate | 30.3p / kWh | 19.3p / kWh |
| Flux rate (02:00 - 05:00) | 18.18p / kWh | 7.18p / kWh |
| Peak rate (16:00 - 19:00) | 42.41p / kWh | 31.41p / kWh |
| Standing charge | 47.95p / day |
I'm sure it is, and that's what I regard as unsatisfactory. However, I suppose it's just the way of the modern world - there are countless other situations in which marketing is persuading people to spend money for little or questionable actual benefit.
I f you already have a PV system then, yes, that would probably make sense. However, as I've been discussing, the wider question relates to having the PV system in the first place
If I understood correctly, what Stephen was suggesting was what you describe as the 'Winter situation' - import electricity during the 3 Flux hours, store it in batteries and then export from batteries during the 3Peak hours.
Yes, I understand that such is, or will be, possible.
Perhaps, but (using SpecialK's figures/times) ...
You would probably switch to something cheaper overnight like economy 7 for winter and just use flux for summer where grid battery charging would be less. You would need an MCS cert for export payments/flux (although octopus are in the throws of allowing DIY export payments not including flux though). Import at about 10p/kWh overnight and use the batteries and solar to take you through the day.
Yes, maybe. However, as I've suggested, in the longer-term I suspect that the circadian variation in demand, hence import cost, is going to be progressively eroded by the increase in nocturnal EV charging, so I'm not sure how long these 'games' will remain cost-effective.
As a matter of interest, how long are the batteries likely to last with the sort of service we are discussing?
How long has economy 7 been around?
A very long time. I have personally had it for 36 years. However, although it has been 'around' for a very long time, it's attractiveness has progressively diminished. The difference between 'daytime' and 'cheap' rate electricity prices is already dramatically less than it was in 1987, and, as I said, I would expect that differential to continue to decrease.
Thanks. At one cycle per day, that would be 22 - 28 years, which I find somewhat 'surprising'!
A lot of the battery manufacturers are putting 10 year warranties on the cells so they must be fairly certain, or perhaps they will not be around when that time comes!.
That latter point is obviously quite often an issue with very long warranties. What one really needs is one of the 'warranties' which is, in fact, provided by one of the very big insurance companies which is unlikley to disappear any time soon.
Well, that would increase daytime electricity usage. Whether that would change patterns of deman such that 'off-peak rates' would remain a useful concept will, as i said, depend upon the extent to which nocturnal demand increases as a result of EV charging.
If AHSPs result in a lot of increase in daytime demand, that would tend to increase the 'need' for 'off-peak' rates. However, as above, there are so many factors involved that one can't really predict what would be the effect of individual ones.
I'm on E7 to save money
I've never had storage heaters, but have always managed to arrange things such that usually 45% - 50% of my total usage is during the 'E7 'off-peak hours', which makes E7 cost-effective About a third of that off-peak usage is for water heating with an immersion - at least when I started, that (with E7) was cheaper than the only alternative I had (LPG).I wonder why they are offering such a tariff only to EV users (I can't believe that it is just "out of the goodness of their hearts"
). As things are at present, it's obviously desirable for them to induce people to shift usage to (currently) low demand times of day, and I can't see why they should be interested (or worried) about what the 'shifted' demand is being used for. What am I missing?
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