I've signed up with these guys for £25, considering putting down £1500 for the 3200kWh estimation of electricity consumption.
https://rippleenergy.com/reservation-fee/offer (click on cost/savings)
TLDR is you're reserving a share of a wind turbine via a co-op, 2p/kWh reserved for maintenance, an assumption of 10p/kWh as the wholesale cost, 20p/kWh as the retail cost - you get the benefit of (retail cost - wholesale).
It ignores standing charges which are typical for energy suppliers, usually about 25p a day.
Think this is potentially interesting alongside a battery and something like Octopus Agile pricing.
https://agileprices.co.uk/
There's a lot of number crunching involved but it seems like there's a decent opportunity to take advantage with some initial investment. Gas and electricity wholesale prices have spiked recently. (was paying 15p/kWh with a company that went bust from the recent price spikes and was shifted to a provider offering 25p/kWh). Looked at other offerings and standard variable is 20p/kWh and fixed rates are generally 25p/kWh or higher.
Makes me wonder about investing in solar of even a micro turbine and/or battery when economy of scale with a larger turbine seems to be better value for money. Food for thought. The agile pricing is interesting, almost along the lines of carbon credits when it comes to energy consumption.
Your turbine farms have a good track record. I'd be a lot more skeptical of a co-op here in the mid-Atlantic states where it is a developing industry --nor do we have any previous experience with co-oped power distribution. (I think they do that in Texas --and had big weather-related problems.)
If I read the Monthly Price Distribution correctly, it looks like £1500 would be a pretty good bet.
Similar setups have happened in DK/NO/NL if I remember right.
My current thinking is this alongside a battery and variable pricing it could work out well over the ~10 years of a battery and ~25 of the turbine.
Ah! I see. You want to do "Peak Shaving."
Peak Shaving with Solar and Energy Storage
https://www.idealenergysolar.com/peak-shaving-solar-storage/
>>Peak Shaving
That was our Plan A for our solar + battery system. However, the inverter we have is highly efficient but fairly dumb. The smarter inverter that allows programming for time of use was an *extra* $4500 at the electrician's cost, without markup (and he was willing to install it at his cost).
The average differential between peak and off peak is less than 15 cents/kwh (in the summer at the highest tier it is 20 cents). We use about 2-3kwh/day during that time. Let's say 3. So that's 45 cents per day of cost shifting we can do with time arbitrage. Let's call it 50 cents. That's about $180/year. That gave us a 25-year payback. The batteries are guaranteed for 10000 cycles if you discharge to 20% or more (i.e. never use more than 80% of capacity). If we did time shifting, we would therefore have to replace our batteries in 27 years, which means that we have to factor in the cost of the batteries too.
So we are looking at 25 years just to break even on the upgraded inverter. Once we accelerate the EOL of the batteries and factor that in, at current prices, peak shaving would cost us a fortune.
After we ran through all these calcs with the electrician and got the system installed, as he was going away, he said, "I'm really glad you decided on the simpler inverter. I like this inverter a lot. It never goes down. The smart inverters end up ruining a lot of my weekends."
>>>Peak Shaving
This post:
Tesla now RENTS solar panels | Page 21 | Tesla Motors Club
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-now-rents-solar-panels.162962/page-21#post-4427388
>>This post
Yeah, that's where we're at. The biggest savings is from just not running the dryer during those times. If we had A/C, I would try pre-cooling the house too. But sometimes, 5pm is just the right time for a sauna, so it costs me $1.50 instead of $1.00 or whatever.
Note that all these calcs change if California rolls back net metering. If we can't sell our excess juice back to PGE, then it's worth it for us to install the fancy inverter and use all our juice instead of sharing it. For the grid, that's probably better. On hot days, PGE needs every watt of the power we produce. On cool sunny days, though, our power is really a liability for them. They have to figure out how to get rid of it and most assuredly would choose not to buy it if they could.
I believe that power auctions take place every five seconds or so. The price on a hot day when everyone is running AC in the Central Valley might be 1000X what it is on a cool, sunny, spring day. It's actually higher than that sometimes as there have been time that CA has to *pay* AZ to take our power. For the consumer, real-time auctions on a 5-second basis are probably too hard - once I start my dryer, I'd like to know the price won't spike 1000X before the load is done. But long-term, I only see net metering working if the real-world power auction price is reflected to the consumer and then I would get to decide whether to sell my solar power or bank it in my battery for use when prices are high.
Same applies to the car parked in your driveway with a 100kWH battery. For us, that would be 2-3 weeks of household power. We could sell high and buy low.
There are some social/economic just issues there too - it means people with old ICE vehicles and no household battery are at the mercy of the system. On the other hand, the constant auction that motivates me to sell from my household (or eventually car) battery would also even out the price spike by a lot.
The possibilities are really interesting there.
>Yeah, that's where we're at. The biggest savings is from just not running the dryer during those times.
Over the past decades, that's been my belief as well --except it has been the water heater. In the Hubitat community, most want to develop elaborate sensor-driven programs to manage their water heaters. I just programmed my old timeclock settings.
BUT for HVAC, I'm not willing to have the discomfort of time-shifting, so alternate power sources would be my only option for peak shaving.
We are still on propane for heating and hot water and we don't have air conditioning, so our best strategy for time shifting there would be to get a bigger propane tank and buy in the summer when prices tend to be lower.
We just got a refill at $6.36/gallon.
Philosophically, I want to get off fossil fuels and I intend to do so eventually. But if propane stays at $6.36/gallon, it might happen sooner.
The issue here is that our electrical infrastructure is so bad. A multi-day outage is something we expect to hit us every couple years, but they come in waves, so some years it's three multi-day outages in a few months with lots of small ones in between. We expect multiple 8-12 hour outages annually. So getting off fossil fuels means
- more inconvenience, which would be fine with us but for the rental property
- more batteries and bigger inverter, which is okay except that baseline inefficiency of an inverter is a function of capacity, not usage, so if you size up for no reason, you are throwing energy away.
- a standby propane generator, which is not only back to fossil fuels, but also noisy, expensive and just feels like last century's tech to me at this point.
So my plan is to burn fossil fuels a bit longer. But as I say, there are a lot of economic/technology signals that would push that decision point earlier or later
- changes to net metering
- changes to price of fuels relative to one another
- changes to prices of batteries and inverters
- upgrades to our electrical infrastructure to make it more reliable
- smart metering with ability to buy/sell power based on price and to be able to do so from home or car batteries
If you start stacking these one on top of another, pretty soon even people who believe that global warming is a good thing will be buying electric cars and converting their home heating. If none of these get deployed, even people like me who believe that countering global warming is urgent will be hanging onto fossil fuels a lot longer than I'd like from a philosophical/aesthetic point of view.
Other advances in consumer solar tech I'm watching and could possibly use without mucking up the design of my house:
The solar roof could finally become a reality thanks to GAF's nailable solar shingles - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/22865603/gaf-energy-timberline-solar-shingle-panel-roof-ul-tesla
These windows are see-through solar panels
https://www.fastcompany.com/90712278/these-windows-are-see-through-solar-panels
>a lot of economic/technology^/political signals that would push that decision point earlier
The campaign to ban gas stoves is heating up
https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-campaign-to-ban-gas-stoves-is-heating-up-215656354.html
+
Oh yeah, this just came to mind. Not a far stretch to include generators.
CA to Ban Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers, Lawn Mowers, Offer Rebates for Electric
https://www.businessinsider.com/california-gas-leaf-blower-lawn-mower-ban-rebates-electric-pollution-2021-10
++
>Not a far stretch
It's Official: Generator Ban Passes in California - RV MILES
https://rvmiles.com/california-generator-ban/
> gas
When I built my home +90% of our electricity was generated by coal. Today it's like 40% coal, 30 natural gas, 30 solar/wind. That's good progress but not enough to have me give up gas heat and water just yet.
>stove
I much prefer cooking with gas vs. electric. I've gone through a few multi-day power outages in my life, having a gas range is a source of emergency heat (plus I can cook) when the power fails.
> not enough to have me give up gas
When the time comes, you won't be asked. IIRC, BOL is already staring down the barrel of a boiler ban.
Cool stuff. I really wanted solar shingles to be ready for prime time, but they weren't. I'm happy with our small panel array and unlike you, I like seeing it up there on the roof. Our house has very poor curb appeal (major error in construction not paying attention to that), so it can only help ;-)
>>ban the sale of portable generators in the state
I get the reasoning. Unfortunately, it's the whole-house generators that drive me crazy. I hope price of batteries comes down fast before the whole-house generators sprout like weeds.
>>much prefer cooking with gas vs. electric
I used to say that. I insisted on it when we built. Having visited friends/family with more modern electric ranges, I now think only a commercial gas range with piping to match so it spits out huge heat can compare to a nice modern electric (i.e. induction or glass top with IR coils instead of those old coil ranges like I had way back which do indeed suck). Standard gas ranges, in my recent experience, are much less functional than a modern electric range, except in one respect.
Other than the power outage consideration, I think induction is superior in every way. Oh... and price. They're not cheap.
And we have a panoply of camp stoves, from ultralight to two-burner, that we can deploy during power outages.
>> Leaf Blowers
The elderly neighbor came to me distraught the other day. She was walking her dog and I was out using my leaf blower. "They're going to take those away from us you know?"
"Not this one. It's battery-powered."
"Do you like it?"
"I love it. I wouldn't consider buying a gas leaf blower ever again."
I'm super happy with the electric pressure washer.
My friend, who I've helped take down trees over 100' tall, showed me his new electric saw. He loves it. Another friend has an electric saw that he uses for everything up to 32" - he has the backpack battery so he can go all day, but does say that adds to fatigue, so he only uses that if he has a lot of starting and stopping. If he's going to just cut and cut, he still uses gas.
There are fewer and fewer small machines where gas is better. I now avoid gas whenever possible. No oil to change. No gas that goes bad. No carb that gets gummed up in the off-season (since most small machines are seasonal or very intermittent in usage). Less noise.
I'd love an electric snowblower. That's the one machine where I've had them go "bad" on multiple occasions (gummed carbs) and when you need it, you often really need it. But when I look at the videos, they are a joke. Beyond 6" of snow, they won't work and I can still shovel 6" of snow without problem. If the snowblower can't handle two feet of snow, it's not worth owning for me.
>backpack
I built/modified my own 24v power tools around 2001-02. Dewalt came out with a pro 24v series which didn't take off and was discontinued pretty quickly. Then they later introduced the 18v tools. I had purchased the 24v sawzall, circular saw, and large hammer-drill. The ni-cad batteries wouldn't power them long enough to be useful for even medium-sized jobs, so I gutted the battery packs and added a set of long jumper cables to them. When I rebuilt the pier (standing in chest-deep water), I hooked them to a pair of 12v deep cycle batteries wired in series. That damn drill would run all day boring 5/8" holes through salt-treated pilings. I have smaller, easier DC tools now but keep that set to use during Armageddon.
Here ya go, Bol. A friend of mine (who lives in the Deep South) sent us his recent article.
In light of the fact that some of the citizens in our Northern climes are facing cold weather, I thought you might enjoy reading this week's column submission to the Americus Times Recorder.
On Fire for a Fireplace
I live in a drafty old house. I live there because she wanted it. You see, we had a nice house: the yard was well-landscaped, the paint was fresh, and the roof didn't leak, much. We could heat and cool it affordably.
Trouble is, it didn't have a downstairs bedroom. Neither of us ever had any trouble navigating the staircase, but with advancing age, we knew our time would come. We thought about adding an elevator, but she really wanted this house and she bought it.
Good Lord! We didn't know what we were in for. It's a pretty thing. Built in 1848, it is only 100 years older than I. After a couple of years and a lot of money, we just about have it where we want it except for one thing: I am freezing.
At one time, this house had ten fireplaces. Four of them were covered over in a long ago upstairs remodel, so that leaves six. We had them checked out and they were pronounced DOA by the local chimney guy. In fact, he advised us not to get too frisky removing some of the paper and insulation that has been blocking them for eons. He thinks that the paper is the only thing preventing the bricks from the chimney and a hundred years of soot from collapsing into the house. That would be fun.
The only warm room in the house is the library for it has a modern "ventless" gas heater that, as they say, will "run the rabbit out of the holler." My bride likes it so hot in there that I can only visit for a few minutes at a time. I'm trying to take the chill off, and she's roasting peanuts on the sofa.
Conversely, the coldest room in the house is a huge, 1970's addition that, while not in keeping with the rest of the house, is a wonderful room and it is where I spend most of time. I think we need a fireplace if for nothing else, it will look warm.
I've had several suggestions:
1. Gas logs, to me are about as exciting as kissing your sister. Not in my house.
2. Buck stove: my house is not exactly the Buck stove type. I can just hear the local hysterical society screaming when they catch a glance at the stove pipe. It would have to be at least 40 ft tall. I suppose I'd have to add a strobe light on top to ward off small planes.
3. Build a masonry fireplace. From what I understand, $20,000 is just the starting point around here. With my luck, it wouldn't draw.
No, I want a real honest to goodness fireplace that I can poke at with a stick. I want to haul firewood and have ashes and soot. I want a big fireplace for a big room... and I want to be able to afford it.
Right now, I'm tempted to buy this electric thing I saw at the big box. It has a "flame" simulated by a crumpled roll of aluminum foil, a sheet of red cellophane and a light bulb.
I'm sorry. Just shoot me or at the very least, pass me another blanket.
And please uncover me for the spring thaw. I sure don't want to miss that.
Boyce (Stick) Miller is a writer of dubious distinction. He lives and works in Americus, GA, and he is a legend in his own mind.
>peak shaving
Pretty much. I get the feeling the energy market will be opened up in the same way the banking market has, the bigger players smooth out their future purchases whereas the likes of Octopus are more akin to Northern Rock's kind of banking, hopefully without the same outcome, playing on the margins and more subject to market forces.
Scotland's one of the windiest countries in Europe, but the small scale stuff makes no sense compared to the commercial scale turbines being put up today. Seems like buying into rippleenergy is worth a punt. Their economics are a bit vague but the general idea is alright.
Yet to look at a years worth of Octopus Energy's variable rate and how a battery could smooth out beneficial costs, it's a really messy number game at the moment. They have an API of prices so it'd be interesting to compare a solar battery charge time vs their half hourly rates.
For my personal situation, it's the same kind of draughty home. I'd had to replace the original boiler when I moved in with a combi, replaced 80 year old windows with double glazing. The ground suspended floor, walls and room-in-roof definitely need some more insulation. Getting a replacement front/back door in the next month or so.
There's grants/loans for that kind of stuff which I don't mind taking, I'm due 13K in child benefit I never claimed which pretty much covers it! The internal wall insulation is the most expensive component but apparently pays for itself within its lifetime.
It feels like energy storage as long as costs come down will ultimately solve/flatten demand. I'm pretty optimistic about it on the wider scale. Recent wholesale prices do look pretty ugly though.
Waiting on quotes for PV/solar thermal and a solar battery. Seems like PVT panels would save the PV/thermal separation but not so many suppliers do that kind of thing. The latitudinal sun is pretty poor in Winter...
It looks like putting money in an onshore turbine is one of the cheapest solutions, but storage is still not quite at the price point it needs to be for an ROI. Of course it's so variable on the right answer for everyone, depending on what direction their house faces, local incentives and all the rest.
In one of the many heatpumps-ain't-gonna-cut-it UK articles I read they said hydronic floor heating was one of the better solutions --mostly because you could heat room-by-room as needed.
I had a friend who used this under the laminate flooring of his motorhome. Worked great, but I don't know if it held up over the long haul. Anyway, for particularly problematic rooms:
InfraFloor - Radiant Floor Heating Systems
http://www.infrafloor.com/film/
>draughty
Probably why tapestries were a big deal in the middle ages.
>underfloor heating
Seems like the modern way, seems to work exceptionally well for high ceiling rooms
Am keen to dig up the floorboards considering it's a suspended floor here and it needs insulated anyway.
Got me thinking over the past year whether I should just pass the buck to someone else and go for a new build, but am keen to take it for the team... besides these older houses tend to have a bit more character.
I don't mind investing in it but there's so many calculations involved in ROI, I get the vibe in the next 5-10 years any investment I make now might be outmoded by advances in how to go about it.
In any event, I'll be insulating the ground floor. Can't be programming for another year with cold feet. Not 20 any more :-)
New builds used to have no Vat to pay, (used to anyway, think its still so)
So new build can sometimes be cheaper.
I dont know your house BOL, but Mum is in an old stone cottage(almost 200 yrs old) , and I cannot see how an old cottage will ever work, without internal wall insulation. And that takes internal space in a small house already.
When she goes someone will knock it down.
Let me know how the calcs go with the suspended floor... I am sitting over some of that... yes cold feet...
you might need some "comfort factor" in the calcs to come up with the right decision.
Insulate, insulate, insulate!
Here on the Canadian prairies our winter temperatures can dip to minus forty and sometimes lower, and high R-factor insulation is the way to go.
This house used to have an outdoor wood furnace but the labour it demanded became less and less attractive plus we hated burning so many trees. A few years ago we removed it in favour of heating with just the electric furnace which had been our backup. We also upgraded our windows from double-pane to triple-pane, replaced our three exterior doors, and had several inches of additional fibreglass insulation blown into the attic. I think the attic is over R-60 now. During a recent cold snap with temperatures of -35 Celsius and wind chills as low as -50, we were comfortable anywhere in the house.
Insulate, insulate, insulate!
>insulate
Most definitely. Home is heated with natural gas at the moment, floor and roof insulation will be sorted this year. Still finalising wall insulation
>house
1890 townhouse, was originally the manse for the church next door, but now split into two houses. Will definitely be getting wall insulation. Worked out that once the plaster/lathe is removed and replaced, we'd lose only a small amount of space, a square metre or two over the whole house. Have to sacrifice/replace the cornices though. Alternative was to have the insulation in front of the existing wall and taper to the cornices... not keen on that.
Insulating will naturally bring down the heating cost so have been looking at ways to also bring down the electricity cost. Have a decent South facing roof slightly spoiled by an extension pointing out of it from when the house was split.
Getting a solar 4kWh array seems to work out well over 25 years given an install cost of £6K. Batteries on a fixed rate of electricity don't seem to provide much ROI given a 10 year lifespan without the numberwang of Octopus Agile pricing and peak shaving. Cost/watt seems to be on a steep downward trajectory though.
>work out well over 25 years
Nothing lasts 25 years anymore, covid may be a possible exception.
>floor and roof insulation
Floor insulation has a very poor ROI, IIRC. Check into insulating the crawlspace walls instead. It is probably impractical, but extending that insulation down to break the frost line it the best. That way, you reclaim the natural, ambient heat in the ground under the house. I'm guessing that's around 10c there (14.4c/58f here).
>roof
Do you have an attic? If so, insulating the floor of the attic has the best ROI.
>25 years
Guarantees are not too bad, think the last one I saw was 10 years parts and labour and 25 year one that guarantees a specific efficiency - something like 15% less than when brand new.
>floor
Am yet to lift up a floor, just hoping there's enough room to get under and do the whole house from one opening. Agree ROI won't be great, thing is I can feel draughts coming from electrical sockets on the outside walls, best guess it's coming up from the floor.
>roof
Room in roof. There's a crawl space around the periphary, managed to insulate it for the most part but one side of the wall is a bit narrow to get into. Also only 100mm. Think I'll just get the existing plasterboard off, get the crawl space insulated and then use some PV
Also been looking at heat batteries https://sunamp.com/residential/ ... so many configurations to reduce heat/gas/electricity use there's surely room for energy advisors in the same way there is for finance.
>sockets
It is a problem even with our type of construction
Duck Brand Socket Sealers Variety Pack, 16 Outlet Sealers and 6 Switch Plates, 2 Decorative Covers, White, 283333 - Outlet Insulation
https://www.amazon.com/Duck-Sealers-Variety-Decorative-283333/dp/B0040JH21W
>floor
Here ys go, Bol. Underfloor Insulation Installed by a Robot
Q-Bot | Robotic underfloor insulation will save energy and keep your home warmer
https://q-bot.co/
Ørsted to build world's single biggest offshore wind farm | windfair
https://w3.windfair.net/wind-energy/news/41349-orsted-wind-farm-offshore-uk-cfd-hornsea-3-price-renewable-energy-investment
Quote from: rcjordan on August 17, 2022, 12:57:41 PM
>floor
Q-Bot | Robotic underfloor insulation will save energy and keep your home warmer
https://q-bot.co/
My Father in law had that sprayed on the inside of his roof, and the next buyers had difficulty in getting a mortgage. apparently it covers up rot and can increase the chance of rot by trapping moisture in the wood. At one point we we discussing changing the whole roof.
I guess floors are cheaper. But its worth checking out the impact. If its the same its a shame, great idea.
https://andywilsonfs.co.uk/2020/11/spray-foam-insulation/
On a second point the cost of Elec is making the case for installing a battery at our house.
all of a sudden a battery could have a 4 year pay back.
And Oh....
https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/articles/mass-closures-in-hospitality-sector-amid-300-energy-price-hike.1177/
>Q-Bot
Cheers, had came across that or another- had the same concerns Rupert mentioned, think some mortgage providers shy away from spray foam for the reasons mentioned, maybe even more so now that some of them are paying closer attention to EPC's for affordability criteria.
I have someone coming to give me a quote for the floor, going for something breathable like rock wool. New doors also. That just leaves the room-in-roof and crawl space... and eventually the walls.
>elec price
Ripple are reserving more spots for their next venture. https://rippleenergy.com/ ... They pre-agreed a wholesale price of 8.4p kWh some months back which means payback in 8 years, but since the wholesale price is closer to 40p right this minute, hopefully they reflect the wholesale price over a year of generation.
I received some new info from Ripple wrt their estimated wholesale prices. They were based on government estimates that didn't foresee the current energy crisis.
Not a final number but they estimate their wind farm will generate revenue of 12pkWh and that potentially prices will remain high until 2030.
That would put my investment with them returning itself in 5 years out of the 25 years lifetime of the turbine. Will be looking at a heat pump when the insulation is sorted to try get rid of gas entirely.
Hornsea 2, the world's largest wind farm, enters full operation
https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/31082022/hornsea-2-the-worlds-largest-wind-farm-enters-full-operation/
> 1.4GW
I was curious how this compares to major projects of the past and trying to wrap my head around the scale - is it a lot or a little
- Grand Coulee Dam - 6.8GW
- Hydro Quebec - 37GW
Note that the total goal of 50GW by 2030 is a third again more than all of Hydro Quebec, but the HQ system has been built out over decades and at substantial cost.
not sure if it has been posted before, but this is a good overview of UK power:
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
To me is shows how well the Govt has done, but how much there is still to do. We burn a lot of gas still.
I think I drive past the coal station on occasion :
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Coal
(Turns out there is more than 1 still called upon!) https://gridwatch.co.uk/stations