OT: Wind Farms

[The Natural Philosopher]

For sure. Just get harry to sand there and talk for a year and that's a thousand foot high mountain of rubbish straight away.

[Windmill]

ROTFL !

[Windmill]

That seems to be what they're threatening anyway, though it won't be described as a whim. Instead they'll say that load shedding was unavoidable. After that picking up the load again can be difficult, but would be easier if it was possible to turn a series of smart meters on again at maybe 5 second intervals instead of all at once.

[Dave Liquorice]

Keep the quotes from the last week from the current ministers. Ofgem and National Grid are warning of the winter margin dropping to 2% by

2015, rather smaller than they where expecting.

Summary:

HMG (Energy Minister: Michael Fallon) categorically states that "the lights will not go out".

Big users (shops and factories) could asked to reduce consumption between 1600 and 2000 winter weekdays. Some big users are already on tarrifs that allow this so nothing new really.

Bringing back into use some mothballed plant. No indication of which plant, the coal burners shut down in the last year or so under the LCD?

As I understand it true smart meters are individually addressable. They send your useage information at possibly 30 minute intervals. Of course to selectively switch off fridges/freezers would need them to be "smart" ie have some means of being controlled by the smart meter or have to be wired on a seperately switched circuit from the meter (that's not going to happen, unless the law changes on new build).

[Bob Eager]

I know we've talked about this before...are there particular components that fail? ISTR capacitors for startup...

[Dave Liquorice]

I was going to say that most these days are electronic with battery/capacitor back up but industrially they are still flogging mechanical ones and motor driven domestic plugin ones are still available.

I'd go for it *provided* that installation of the required infrastructure was at no cost to me and it guaranteed a 50% reduction in power bills for 25 years. (Not that disimilar to the solar PV subsidy...)

Well ish, you are making the assumption that our "professional politicians" have enough technical/engineering understanding to get even half a grasp of the implications. Past performance across many areas from Firearms, Dangerous Dogs and Part P indicate otherwise. The green and vested interest equipment makers will have powerful lobby groups to gloss over "inconvenient technicalities".

[tim.....]

perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my post

but you don't need smart metres to turn off a whole street's supply. We didn't have them in 74 did we?

tim

[tim.....]

I agree that it's no going to be done using separate circuits, but it won't always be possible by "wireless" signals

I have just been offered a smart meter and when discussing the location of my flat wrt the location of the communal meter cupboard, the advisor said that the remote display probably wouldn't work (I had assumed that it was controlled using wireline technology, but it's wireless)

tim

[Bob Eager]

Lovely. Thanks for taking the time to type that all in!

[charles]

If the fridge/freezer doesn't need to be pwered for some time, why is it on at all? Surely it has a thermostat to deal with the its power requirements?

I understand that freezers in Canada had, at one point a solenoid operated latch on the door. If there was a power failure, you needed to operate a catch to warn you that the power was off. Much better than a LED which many people wouldn't notice.

[polygonum]

Is there something (other than using really good caps) which could be done to minimise the likelihood of a failure occurring? Say, an improvement to the fundamental design.

[polygonum]

I remember, from back in the days of the very much lower cost Economy 7, discussion about putting freezers into super-freeze overnight. The temperature then going well below that required, but doing so on the cheap. During the day, temperature would slowly rise, and a top up might be required.

Now I don't know if anyone ever actually did that... And it might end up using significantly more electric power overall, but if the costing reflects things like peak-lopping, then it might still be economically viable.

[Bob Eager]

And the increased energy required to defrost breakfast/lunch! .-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

At any given state of technology there is always a best and a cheapest way to solve a problem. Sometimes they are even the same.

[polygonum]

Good point!

But reduces A/C usage if it's a very hot morning.

[tony sayer]

Good article that Arfa and its predecessor....

I too have mended a few SMPS and have found very much as you have duff caps all the time. In fact we've just done one high power one where the input rectifier was putting 20 volts more than the original cap was rated for no wonder it was swollen!

We have had SMPS fail in otherwise good equipment such as MOXA and Allied Tellsys and some other known equipment's. In each case the main electronics look fine decent fibreglass PCB etc but all let down by a poorly rated SMPS changing these for a decent one such as Traco or similar the equipment is as good as new, prolly better. As to caps I can see what they use el cheapo ones decent ones cost, such as long life 105 deg C ones...

[tim.....]

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