Snake oil?

[Roger Mills]

Is this for real, or is this snake oil?

How much do these things cost - I can't find the price anywhere?

[newshound]

Can't see how it can be real. TNP will be along shortly to say some ArtStudent "journalist" has been fooled by a press release.

[Bob Eager]

Probably blindly republished from some April 1st source.

[Theo]

Took me 2 seconds to google them and find: https://measurable.energy/faqs

(which is the outfit rather than this specific product - their website seems rather out of date)

The actual product doesn't sound particularly groundbreaking nor fanciful. I expect it talks to:

and lights a green light when the CO2/kWh is below some threshold. Maybe you can set it to only turn the socket on if the green light is on.

That sounds pretty straightforward (unlike all their machine learning stuff) but it's a separate question what would benefit from that. Possibly various charging things that are amenable to timeshifting - batteries, hot water, EV granny charger, etc. Some major loads like dishwashers, washing machines and tumble dryers might also benefit, but are often not set up to have their power interrupted and start a cycle when reconnected.

I note they're focusing on commercial buildings, where there is often a lot of kit left on because nobody 'owns' it (eg the coffee machine stays powered even when everyone has left the office), and a lot of things are running automatically (it doesn't matter when the hot water tank is heated, as long as it's full by 9am, but nobody is going to push a 'boost' button).

The thing that I might have more objection with is how much power they take doing this smart thing, versus a normal socket that takes 0W when turned off. Even though they say they take 0.5W, that's still something when multiplied by all the sockets in a commercial building. Obviously much less than the people use, but some buildings have a lot more sockets than people.

Theo

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Roger Mills wrote on 10/04/2022 :

They will not be cheap and will take a long time to pay for themselves. Idea is the light deters you from plugging in, that's manual intervention, until it's powered on renewable and if what ever you have left plugged in, goes to standby it cuts the power off completely. The latter will save a bit if standby is an appreciable load, but nothing if standby is around 1watt, because the device itself will consume that much anyway - so worse that pointless in those circumstances.

Reminds me of a large company with lots of offices, filled with lots of tech., that were advised by an energy specialist to install plug in timers on all their PC's and printers, so they switched off during the unoccupied times. Great in principle, but standby used less than the clocks and everytime there was a power cut, there was chaos the next day when the time clocks stopped them using the equipment.

[John Rumm]

It is a real (2018 startup) company with actual accounts:

and a web site:

https://measurable.energy/faqs

There are several things going on there by the sounds of it... the "green" led thing, is presumably just based on the current energy mix as indicated by BM Reports. (the same source as used by TNP for Gridwatch)

In an office environment there may be some scope for delaying power use until the wind input is sizeable. In a domestic situation you probably have less ability to make use of that information.

The second bit seems to be some automated demand management, the socket appears to be able to disconnect the load under software control. In an office environment that potentiality dump some load during unoccupied times. Without actual data it is difficult to know how significant the real saving would be.

(and obviously you need offset some of that energy "saved" into a higher heating load, plus the power required for a bunch of IoT enabled sockets

- and the energy consumption of the back end ISP and data centre resources required to make those work)

[Cursitor Doom]

Please don't fall for what is essentially a scam. It *might* be technically true, but won't save you a bean, all things considered.

[ARW]

0.5W to monitor a kettle?

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

It happens that Cursitor Doom formulated :

+1

[Chris Hogg]

That was my impression after watching the video, although my initial thought was that there might be a signal transmitted through the mains indicating whether the electrons on that occasion were mostly 'green', a bit like the domestic Powerline system but nationwide!

I'm with OVO, not out of any personal preference, but got dumped there a couple of years ago when Scottish Power - Southern Electric sold its customer side to OVO. I believe OVO claim they only sell 'green' electricity from renewables (ha, ha!). I imagine their observant customers who fit one of these devices would be none too pleased to see it not showing green all the time!

[John Rumm]

I suspect that is a little harsh... I can see in some offices that it might serve a purpose, since staff in many cases either don't care, or would not think to switch off stuff that is not their responsibility. (although a time switch could probably handle many of the tasks)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Why bother. You have already spotted the April Fool? at the BBC

[Jon]

+1

[Martin Brown]

I suspect mostly snake oil with a bit of smoke and mirrors thrown in.

I reckon it may be the same IoT based stuff as this startup with a similar name judging by the name on the socket plate:

There is scope for larger commercial building to make considerable savings by not having large numbers of hefty peripherals sat on standby

24/7 in an office environment that only works 9-5. Bigger laser printers can be brutes sat in hot standby ready for near instant action.

One of my very green computer friends only very recently realised his true photo quality dyesub printer was consuming 100W in standby 24/7 which was why his cat loved to sit on it.

All of my peripherals are unpowered once both of the main computers are off (such load based smart switches now seem out of favour).

[whisky-dave]

I guess it depends on who's using the system, I would prefer some inteligent control override and I wouldn't trust such an auto system would get things right. And how does it really know when the energy is 'green' or not isn;t well explanied

[alan_m]

Perhaps someone here could start producing something similar for sale but a cut down version. If the green light only comes on when there is

100% green energy coming out of the socket you could do away with the greed LED and only fit the red LED. You also would discard the computer or any other form of data communication with the outside world.

[The Natural Philosopher]

All completely unnecessary with an all nuclear green grid., Just leave the green light permanently wired

[Adrian Caspersz]

Ye could sell a version of the socket to the HiFi golden ears brigade

RED - constant power to enjoy constant 33.333333 rpm GREEN - The wind is up, go and do something else and play the LPs later.....

Swap the LEDs to make it more user friendly.

[Adrian Caspersz]

'Economy 7' MKII, overnight generated electricity was cheaper - now it's when there is wind.

Maybe the future is a battery power bank in your house/office, charged whenever the going electricity rate is cheap. A second 'green' ring main run around the place.

Let me start my collection of old laptop batteries and recycled EV cells

- do I need to take special precautions on keeping so much lithium on site or preinform the fire brigade where best to aim the hose?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually the reverse is true, when the wind blows we all pay a fortune for wind energy. When it drips we burn cheap coal instead.

Maybe the answer is to dump renewables completely and build a bog standard well engineered *simple* nuclear grid

Yes.