21 September - Not as Smart as they think
It’s
not only on Covid19 that the newspapers are full of scare stories. Just a couple
of days ago they were telling us that the energy companies are planning to remotely close
down any household devices that use a lot of electricity. Car chargers (32 amps)
and heat pumps, the favoured replacement for gas boilers.
Heat pumps are a sort of reverse refrigerator. Powerful compressors use a lot of
electricity but can push three times as much back into your radiators. That’s the theory
anyway and a friend who has one seems to be happy with his.
But the newspapers are asking where the electricity is coming from.
The
National Grid says there is plenty available but it might be necessary to
smooth out demand a bit.
A year ago I was asked to trial the rationing system known as Flexible
Responsive Energy Delivery but I declined. I didn’t think my electricity use was
anywhere near typical.
In theory it can switch off car battery charging as described in the Telegraph
article last Saturday. In practice it can’t, at least not for now. All you have to do is pull the Cat5
cable from the router. Job done.
Presumably in due course such systems will work via the mobile telephone
network. How much does a decent Faraday cage cost?
A better way of smoothing electricity demand is to use batteries and that is
already being done to some extent in the UK and on a much bigger scale where they can be more
reliably charged from solar energy. Australia is the most quoted example.
When electric cars are widespread big batteries will be ubiquitous and the
technology already exists to let them power your house. The Japanese charging
protocols allowed for it but unfortunately the EU standard which is a loosely
designed mess doesn’t, but there are sure to be revisions to the standards
before too long.
Unfortunately if the Loon of London gets his way we won’t have cars and bike
batteries probably won’t run a kettle for long. Politicians and joined up
thinking? There’s a non-sequitur if ever there was one.