[OpenTRV-interest] [OpenTRV-dev] Storage heating, dynamic demand, and OpenTRV

[Damon Hart-Davis]

Sorry, too many things to today today and that came out garbled…

I think that the devices we are discussing ignore that fact that a huge generation premium is being paid by taxpayers and operate as if that the ‘excess’ is an annoyance for the householder to dispose of at their whim, whereas I see the FiT and the generated electricity as a public good financed by public money.  The main counter to that is that getting storage right is such a pressing issue that almost anything in that area (actual storage, or deferring/shiting demand, storing as heat, etc) is worth considering to see if it works.  Though deferring gas demand, where gas is one of the few things that we *can* store, might be less good again…

Rgds

Damon


On 8 Sep 2014, at 13:25, Damon Hart-Davis <EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> The reason that I’m thinking about this at all is that it will be difficult to make this work with things like heat pumps, dishwashers and washing machines at all, especially in the absence of a wide-spread agreed comms mechanism, but not only because of that.  And the speed of PV generation variation (which compounds the issue) caught me by surprise when I started sampling mine every minute: http://www.earth.org.uk/live-grid-tie-stats.html
> 
> Also I feel that the current products come from an untenable carbon/ethical pov, but as I say, the ice that I’m skating on is very thin.
> 
> I did enter one small idea into a competition and got through the first round, but was already encountering significant practical limitations: http://www.earth.org.uk/domestic-dynamic-demand-ideas.html#DD1
> 
> Rgds
> 
> Damon
> 
> 
> 
> On 8 Sep 2014, at 13:00, Graeme Radtke <EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN> wrote:
> 
>> Surely the ImmerSun and equivalents like the SolariBoost and SOLic 200, etc are just controllers - that redirect the excess power to other devices using "intelligent" monitoring of the generated power vs consumption in line with a schedule and, in some cases,  feedback from the heater.  The efficiency of the use of that power, is dependant on the devices that the power is directed to and how it is then stored and used.  So in-of-itself, the controller is not the unethical device.  Some are better than others, and unfortunately, that tends to be reflected in the price.
>> Ideally, I would store the power, rather than convert it to heat and store that, but the costs, complexity and space needs of power storage necessitate other options.  
>> I work from home during the day and tend to use high consumption devices like the dishwasher and tumble dryer at peak generation times for my PV system, and when I remember, I manually switch on the immersion heater to heat my hot water rather than paying for gas to do so.  I'd like to automate that process, and also consider a way of relieving my gas central heating of some of its burden.  Storage heaters along with a controller like these examples seem to be the obvious solution to me.
>> 
>> Graeme
>> 
>> 
>>> From: EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN
>>> Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:15:38 +0100
>>> To: EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN
>>> CC: EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN
>>> Subject: Re: [OpenTRV-interest] [OpenTRV-dev] Storage heating,	dynamic demand, and OpenTRV
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> But I regard that (ImmerSun et al) as borderline unethical on its own, because mindless bulk conversion of electricity to heat via resistance heating is a shocking waste of valuable exergy.
>>> 
>>> But you’ll see that I’m treading an awfully fine line myself.
>>> 
>>> Rgds
>>> 
>>> Damon
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 8 Sep 2014, at 11:52, Graeme Radtke <EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I have recently been looking into a number of commercial products that claim to reduce exported power to almost nil. For example: http://www.immersun.co.uk/ which diverts your excess generation into the immersion heater and/or storage heaters and under-floor heating. 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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