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Hmmm... How many batteries could you charge in 8 hours?

British Gas is to offer free electricity for eight hours at weekends to two million customers who have smart meters installed.

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Tim

Reply to
Tim+
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Use it to run your neighbour's meter backwards.

Cheers

Reply to
Syd Rumpo

Typical 80A supply = 19.2kW. Quick charge AAs with a charge current of 1A @ 1.7v = 1.7W. A 90% efficient charger makes that 1.9W, giving 10,105 ce lls at once. x 8 hours / 2.5hr charge = 32,336 cells in 8 hours. Fan cool all the wiring & incomer fuse and you'd probably get a lot more.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Ummm, and what benefit would that be to me?

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

When they say 'free' I'm guessing it's like the FIT where other electricity users will be paying for it (except the likes of harry of course).

But yes, assuming there wasn't an 'acceptable use' rider and that you had the opportunity (like me and my plug-in EV) it could be interesting. (I used to be able to commute all week on one charge).

Or one of those large garden swimming pools in the loft and another in the garden have your own hydro-storage system. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Sorry, I didn't spell out this complex scenario well and left too much to the imagination.

Ummm, perhaps he might give you a cut of his bill reduction?

Cheers

Reply to
Syd Rumpo

Just had a look, as we are with British Gas and have smart meters, best tariff is 12.56/Kwh & 21.06 SC compared to our current (ha) collective switch tariff of 8.76Kwh and 18.9 SC

Err, don't think so :)

Reply to
Lee

Compressed air to run a motor or two might work better. Top up your ground source heat pump?

Reply to
dennis

But, with sufficient battery storage, could one run your house for the rest of the week on 8hrs X 100amps? ;-)

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

I suspect you'd have a hell of a long payback period for a garage full of Tesla PowerWalls, though.

Reply to
Adrian

I was going to dismiss this out of hand, but we average 15Kwh/day, so yes, I guess. Or a least a substantial part of it :) But it would mean a somewhat considerable investment in suitable batteries/inverter. The big question then is how likely BG are to continue with the deal...

Reply to
Lee

Let's say that you get 10kwh saving per week. £1.50/wk.

What's the payback period for those batteries?

Reply to
Adrian

I ndeed. With an ordinary meter you could maybe get away with it but a smart meter might reveal the rather "odd" consumption pattern. ;-)

Dunno if you've seen it but the Photonic Induction chap on YouTube has made a whole house UPS system that charges at low rate electricity and powers the lights during the day effectively "time shifting" the low rate electricity to a more useful time of day. He reckoned his system cost 7-800 quid and will pay for itself fairly quickly.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

When I costed such a system to cope with realistic loads, it was more like £7-£8000 and the running cost in terms of battery replacement negated any potential gains.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Yes, been watching Photonic's channel for quite a while :) The ability of the system to cope with short high intensity loads seems quite impressive.

Reply to
Lee

On a related note, I was reading a (US) car forum where there were a few disgruntled California residents complaining that the local electricity company (apparently a monopoly) had noticed the pattern of use from charging electric vehicles and was increasing the tariffs. Thus negating much of the savings of having a plug in car...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if our tax crazy Government couldn't find a way to charge extra tax on electricity they could reasonably prove was for "automotive use".

Reply to
Lee

Pretty much scrambled the meaning of that. I meant of course that I expect the Government to find a way to tax such usage. Another stealth reason for SMs?

Reply to
Lee

How many bitcoins (or other digital currency) could you mine in 8 hours?

Is mining an economically viable way to convert free electricity to money?

Reply to
Caecilius

Pacific Gas and Electric (and yes, a monopoly).

Last I heard they have to apply to the state's Utility Commission to alter the rates.

Reply to
Tim Streater

And the air would be lighter in the loft eh. ;-)

Don't have one ... but a mate does. Well, he has the (very deep) holes in the ground filled with pipes that terminate in a manifold in his garage and are connected to the heat pump with the lot filled with a suitable fluid of some sort but he never got it going (I mean it runs, but doesn't run properly / fully etc).

I'm guessing BG will have calculated the tariffs so that nothing we could do re energy storage today would be worthwhile.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

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