Solar panels with no smart meter?

[ericmark]

The balancing game is complex, I remember talking to department managers about projected down time for machines, which would change their decision as to if worth moving labour to another machine, but to project how long it will take to locate a fault is hard, once fault is known OK, but once fault is known often just a couple of minutes until running again.

OK we can work out that during the adverts in the world cup the power use may go up as kettles are switched on, but with batteries even that is absorbed locally.

Talking to neighbours it seems this area smart meters don't work, the reception required is simply not there, so they are not being fitted in this area, so I will just need to use the two meters, one import and one export.

 

[JohnW2]

Hi John, here's a starting place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

Fair enough, and thanks. Much of my life involves maths, but not in fields such as gaming or economics, so I was not familiar with this bit of jargon. However, now that I know what you were referring to, I have already acknowledged that it is not a "zero sum game", when I wrote:

As things are ('in the current situation') the primary means of inducing people to shift demand to a period when supply otherwise would exceed demand is to provide 'financial incentives' (mediated via TOU tariffs) - and, as you say, if that shift of demand can (in the sort of circumstances you describe) result in a reduction in generation cost at that point in time.

However, as I went in to say ...

However, that does not alter the fact that those who have (and 'take advantage of') the TOU tariffs are then paying less for their electricity at that point in time than they would be paying if everyone was paying the same for electricity at that point in time, whereas those not using such tariffs would be paying more than they would be paying if everyone was paying the same.

Here's an analogy: .... -I sell tomatoes Monday to Friday ... -On Friday I can either sell them cheap to people with tomato soup makers (TOU), or I have to pay to have them disposed of (curtailment) .... -Being able to sell them cheap on Friday, instead of paying to have them disposed of, means I don't have to charge as much on Monday to Thursday to make the same money.

Indeed. However, if, without any human intervention, an automated system automatically diverted any tomatoes remaining on Friday to soup manufacture, then, again, you wouldn't have to charge as much on Monday to Thursday (and Friday) as would be the case if you had to pay for disposal of leftovers - but that could be done in an equitable fashion, with everyone paying the same (at all times), rather than some paying more (on some days) than others.

However, as I've said, unless/until such systems exist, such that we have to rely of human responses to financial incentives, the inequalities are probably something that we have to inevitably live with.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I would love to live in a world where supply and demand were balanced by availability and need, I really would.

I'm sure that we all would. It obviously will never be totally attainable, but one imagines that 'systems' will gradually move us in that direction.

One of the inevitable problems of an automated system is that it has to take into account the 'requirements' of individual consumers, requirements which can't necessarily be changed by any amount of incentivisation. For example, if (the timing of) all the EV charging in the country were 'under central control', I imagine that could go a fair way to balancing supply and demand - but that would quite often not correspond with the actual 'charging requirements' of consumers.

However, the suggestion that TOU tariffs become increasingly redundant as automation matches supply and demand more closely, carries the same weight as the suggestion that price differences and fluctuations become increasingly redundant in the cost of tomatoes, or milk or bananas or X-boxes or televisions etc.

I don't really understand that comment. It surely is the case that more balanced supply and demand become (by whatever process), the less need will there be for prices to vary according to TOU isn't it? At a crude level, with my E7 tariff, the difference between 'peak' and 'cheap' rate electricity prices has diminished dramatically during the 35 or so years I've had it - and I can but presume that reflects a reduced need to incentivise night-time usage?

I really don't like the inherent inequality and inhumanity in this system of exchange, but it doesn't apply to electricity any more than it applies to any other set of goods or services.

As I've said, influencing human behaviour/decisions by means of financial incentives (which inevitably creates the 'inequalities' is the primary approach available to us at present, and I see no practical way of avoiding that for the time being. However, as I've been trying to say, I would hope that things will change in the (very) long term.

Kind Regards, John