Smart meters

They're not even free, Gail, as you and I have been paying for them for the last few years via the numerous "environmental" taxes that we pay on all our energy bills.

 

I phone in the readings every month, Gai. I would do it online, but for some reason I can't into my account , even after many attempts to amend it, so phoning is the best way. Some of the "facts" they have been putting out regarding the large savings by having a Smart Meter have proved to be not so factual and now the Energy Media is saying what possible saving there could be might be around £10 and year of less, but have made no apologies for the original estimates that were completely untrue.

 

Tesla already have a storage system for domestic generated solar power but it's not cheap enough, yet, to be worthwhile as far as I'm concerned. For some it is already viable. One of the most annoying things about the domestic solar generation system at the moment if even when you may be producing loads of power at home, if there's a power cut (we've had seven this year), your system has to automatically shut down. A storage system should overcome that.

 

That seems completely illogical

Is it that the controller is mains powered? Maybe an Uninterruptible Power Supply just for the controller would keep you going? They cost around £100 and are usually sold for keeping your computer going for a few hours.

 

Not saying they're wrong, I'm dubious about these as anyone else, but the key word above is speculated... It's just guess work to create headlines.
No energy company can make best use of the smart meters until the majority have them (years away) and in the interim there's good saving to be made by switching before they're forced on you.
I had a gen 1 fitted which is now just a bog standard meter as it wasn't compatible after I moved suppliers so have had the opportunity to test the waters a bit.

 

It's 'Elf and Safety.

If we're generating more power than we can use it automatically goes back through our meter and into the grid. If there's a power cut because of a fault then engineers may be working on the line and they don't want electricity charging down it from everyone's solar panels.

That's why storage batteries would be good.

I don't see why there can't be an automatic system that just stops the unused electricity from going to the meter if there's a power cut. The inverter is powered by AC and cuts off automatically. It's the machine that converts the DC current coming from the solar panels into AC for our household. I'm sure it could be made to run on AC from the DC it's converting. Of course, the storage batteries would be DC as well, so I don't know whether they would work in a power cut.

 

Ah I understand now - that makes sense. Nothing is ever straightforward. It's a bit like the wind turbines that have to switch off when there is too much wind!

 

Yes, although the wind turbines are also switched off because they're producing more power than required. They should be able to store it but don't bother. Someone did devise a fairly simple way to do it but it was unconventional so they ignored him!

A friend of mine has a small wind turbine and when the wind is strong he can still cope with it. He's an amateur inventor and devised a gearing that could be applied to slow it down.

 

For local storage to become properly viable, it would have to be designed so that it could not 'backfeed' into the grid for safety reasons. The hard bit of this is that the local energy would have to have a local ground connection, and that may upset conventional RCD's; it is not impossible, but someone would have to do a bit of sensible design work and that would then have to be certified and standardised.

I really do think that it will eventually go the way that you will be able to get an all inclusive sort of deal from energy companies where they supply the kit for local generation and storage, and you pay a monthly payment for the kit and your energy.

 

There are storage batteries available for domestic solar panels but they're not really financially viable. Even then, I don't know whether they would work during a power cut.

 

Those costs would come right down once they are being bought and used in bulk - at the moment, volumes are low so prices are high