3 ms·

But so much of the demand is flexible. For example, I get zero benefit from heating my water tank at a particular time. Building grid storage so I can run my he

But so much of the demand is flexible. For example, I get zero benefit from heating my water tank at a particular time. Building grid storage so I can run my heat pump when it's dark and the air is still is inefficient and silly.

ChuckMcM 9y ago
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. At the individual user level energy usage may appear random and chaotic but at the community level that is not the case. To use your example, at any given instant in time someone in your city is heating water (whether intentionally by consuming water from a hot water storage facility, or passively as that facility activates automatically to keep the water at a given temperature). All of those usages level out to an aggregate demand on energy to heat water over unit time. If you think about it as a capacitor that "filters" high frequency noise on the electrical grid it might be clearer.
- oconnore 9y ago
  I'm saying that with dynamic pricing grid loads no longer have to be noise. Everyone can charge, heat, clean when energy is cheap/available.
- vidarh 9y ago
  They level out to some extent, but they also enable far larger spikes to form when external events cause normally relatively "random" things to synchronise into narrower intervals across a large number of households. E.g. the UK has what is called "TV pickup": Shortly after East Enders ends (daily evening TV soap opera), you'll get the sudden surge of 1.5m+ electric kettles turned on at once. We see that type of situation where "random" events coalesce into very narrow time bands in all kinds of areas. I'd imagine we'll see this type of thing also happen for automated processes. E.g. air-con units ramping up based on thermostats in very lose proximity in the same areas etc. I feel this is one of the areas where we need a smarter grid and smart home tech and home based batteries to work in conjunction to time-shift load and smooth out the demand more. E.g. a hot water storage system can afford to turn off for 5 minutes (or whatever) and let the water cool slightly to take advantage of a discount 5 minutes down the line, or an air con unit can reduce speed for the same reason. Or a deep freezer that takes advantage of whatever the safe variation in freezer temperature would be. Or, hey, I'd like a button on my washing machine and dishwashers that say "I want it to be done by time X. Find the lowest guaranteed rate (e.g. nightly rates) that will let you complete by X. If between now and then you get an offer for a lower rate, start then instead". Most of the time we just set "random" time delays to run them during the night, but most of the time I don't care if it actually runs then as long as it's done by the morning or by the time I'm done working etc. You already have that happening to an extent at industrial scale. E.g. with industrial processes that require lots of energy that can be slowed or sped up according to prices, but there's a lot of discretionary demand in home as well that could be leveraged to smooth out the demand curve a lot more, and with a battery tied in it could smooth it even more.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. At the individual user level energy usage may appear random and chaotic but at the community level that is not the case. To use your example, at any given instant in time someone in your city is heating water (whether intentionally by consuming water from a hot water storage facility, or passively as that facility activates automatically to keep the water at a given temperature). All of those usages level out to an aggregate demand on energy to heat water over unit time. If you think about it as a capacitor that "filters" high frequency noise on the electrical grid it might be clearer.

oconnore 9y ago
I'm saying that with dynamic pricing grid loads no longer have to be noise. Everyone can charge, heat, clean when energy is cheap/available.
vidarh 9y ago
They level out to some extent, but they also enable far larger spikes to form when external events cause normally relatively "random" things to synchronise into narrower intervals across a large number of households. E.g. the UK has what is called "TV pickup": Shortly after East Enders ends (daily evening TV soap opera), you'll get the sudden surge of 1.5m+ electric kettles turned on at once. We see that type of situation where "random" events coalesce into very narrow time bands in all kinds of areas. I'd imagine we'll see this type of thing also happen for automated processes. E.g. air-con units ramping up based on thermostats in very lose proximity in the same areas etc. I feel this is one of the areas where we need a smarter grid and smart home tech and home based batteries to work in conjunction to time-shift load and smooth out the demand more. E.g. a hot water storage system can afford to turn off for 5 minutes (or whatever) and let the water cool slightly to take advantage of a discount 5 minutes down the line, or an air con unit can reduce speed for the same reason. Or a deep freezer that takes advantage of whatever the safe variation in freezer temperature would be. Or, hey, I'd like a button on my washing machine and dishwashers that say "I want it to be done by time X. Find the lowest guaranteed rate (e.g. nightly rates) that will let you complete by X. If between now and then you get an offer for a lower rate, start then instead". Most of the time we just set "random" time delays to run them during the night, but most of the time I don't care if it actually runs then as long as it's done by the morning or by the time I'm done working etc. You already have that happening to an extent at industrial scale. E.g. with industrial processes that require lots of energy that can be slowed or sped up according to prices, but there's a lot of discretionary demand in home as well that could be leveraged to smooth out the demand curve a lot more, and with a battery tied in it could smooth it even more.