I think I'm gonna build me a windfarm.

Oh FFS – are you on a wind up or are you really that dense?

At peak demand eveyones immersion heater is switched off. When demand drops or generation capacity rises everyones immersion heater is switched on. So you have hot water available the whole time but it is only heated when there is excess ellectricity.

atually its between 45 and 65 c – its always kept above 45C

At peak demand eveyones immersion heater is switched off

But almost everyone’s immersion heater is switched off almost all the time anyway. This is my point.

Most of us do not use electricity to heat water. We can only save peak demand from those who do, which limits the potential of this method.

Gonefishing – this tech is complementary to other ones such as you describe – and it is low cost and reduces the need to move large4 quantities of energy around

TandemJeremy

Gonfishin –
have you ever heard of this before? Looked into it?

Oh FFS – are you on a wind up or are you really that dense?

Could try not resorting to insults when someone holds an opinion contrary to your own. It does your arguments no favour.

Ian – when someone is claiming to understand a very simple concept but their answers show they have missed the point totally its hard not to think they must be trolling and / or get frustrated with them. Expspecially when molgrips routinly thows insults at me

Most of us do not use electricity to heat water.

You are not representative of the UK molgrips. many many folk use electricity to heat water.

We can only save peak demand from those who do, which limits the potential of this method.

Thats correct – to several GW of smoothing effect or a considerable % of the UK energy demand

Its only a part of the solution but its cheap, robust, proven and complementary to other measures

I honestly don’t believe he’s trolling you. I just think that you need to learn to accept that when given a set of ‘facts’ people will draw different conclusions. That your’s is different to his doesn’t invalidate either of them.
I was sent an interesting, though not particularly relevant, article today about about the perils of mixing data and conclusions.
http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/04/hydration-lesson-in-interpretation.html

Just had some more thoughts. How would you go about controlling whether or not these immersion heaters are online or not? The infrastructure for the hot water might be there but how would it know when it was allowed to turn on and how would it be told to turn off? From what I can figure out it would need a feedback controller on every hot water tank that would feed back to some sort of central control system that would have to determine how much spare capacity there is within the system and how many of these heaters should be switched on. That sounds like an immensely complicated control system to me and the infrastructure certainly isn’t there are the moment to do this.

gonfishin read the article. Teh answers are in there.

TandemJeremy

Gonfishin –
have you ever heard of this before? Looked into it?

Or are you looking to dismiss it as it blows a part of teh anti renewables argument out of the water.

gonefishin, It is immensely complicated, but there are a variety of government initiatives at the moment to install really smart meters in each house that are online 24/7 and allow remote appliance control. Alas it still has quite a way to go before there is any sort of recognised standards that can be rolled out nation wide, or even an organisation but in charge of defining such standards. The Building Research Establishment has done some provisional work but I wouldn’t hold your breath until all the commercial interests have come to some agreement. Probably what your likely to see first is things like social housing projects where items like washing machines will only run at night.

Dr Barrett claims the immersion heaters could be controlled using a system called ripple control, where high-frequency pulses are sent through the mains and received by a device on each water heater that turns power off and on as required. The system has been used for decades in New Zealand, where the grid company can now reduce peak demand by about 13%,

Thats not a feedback system. Its just an on off switch centrally controlled ( with obviously thermostatic cut-outs). A feedback system would of course be better. Its no reason not to go down this road. that it can be introduced now with simple control and improved later with sophisticated feedback systems.

Intelligent meters and switching. Electrical circuits are capable of carrying information as well as AC. The meter knows the tarif and the water heater only works when the tarif is low which equates to low demand.

At present I’m the intelligence in my own system. When the solar hot water heater isn’t enough on its own I change the position of two valves to divert the solar warmed water to a conventional immersion heater and switch it on – when the PV panels are producing or when I go to bed and demand is low.

We need the kind of pump storage systems the Germans are now building. They are no longer just pumping the water back up the hill at conventional rain water fed hydro stations when demand is low, they are building reservoirs on the tops of hills with no river feeds that are exclusively for pump storage (though some also potentially have an irrigation function). When the wind blows they pump water up the hill and use it to generate when the wind drops.

Or are you looking to dismiss it as it blows a part of teh anti renewables argument out of the water.

Oi, a bit less of the ad hominum attacks if you don’t mind. For the record, inspite of my working in the oil and gas industry I am pro renewables. They make perfect sense when implemented correctly.

Oh and the answers as to how it would control the flow of electricity to a huge number of immersion heaters are not in that guardian article. There are ideas, one of which is more or less saying “ach it’ll be fine” and the other is a very complicated feedback system.

The sort of stuff that Ian is referring to with smart meters is part of the answer to that question but sadly it only colectes the datat. In addition to that all the data would have to be processed and then a control signal sent out to individual (or more likely groups of) heaters. Temperature is however quite a difficult thing to control with any real degree of precision as it is generally a very slow moving property. I also dread to think what the dead time on a control system like this would be.

Gonefishin – but you completely dismiss this idea out of hand despite not knowing anything about it and despite the fact it is proven workable technology. 🙄

Indeed, TJ, the Italians have been using it for some time. The electricity company can remotely limit the power consumers can draw and the consumer can use the tarif information the meter relays to switch on energy greedy appliances when demand is low.

I have not dismissed it out of hand in fact earlier I said

Technologically it is very easy

although to be fair now that I’ve had a chance to think about the control aspects that may have been a rash statement.

What I have done is to question whether it is the best way of dealing with excess energy which given my engineering knowledge I do not think that it is. You on the other hand have engaged in insults and ad homenum attacks to defend your position. I am open to presuasion but it will take a good deal more than a guardian article and insults from you to persuade me that this represents the best use of excess power generation in the UK.

Temperature is however quite a difficult thing to control with any real degree of precision as it is generally a very slow moving property. I also dread to think what the dead time on a control system like this would be.

Indeed. It’s relatively easy to have local control, but predicting how much energy can be absorbed nationally is difficult, though controlling the grid as it stands is pretty difficult but they manage it. The government is quite keen on the whole smart home thing at the moment though. Partially for energy saving, but they also have degree of interest in assisted living aspects, e.g. having the ability to monitor patient state remotely. Mind you they can already do this to some extent at the moment, so the tinfoil hat side of me does wonder if it’s an excuse to get rid of some doctors and nurses and replace them with a google app.

gonefishin – what you fail to understand is that this is a simple, robust , reliable, well proven way of smoothing the peaks and troughs in demand.

however you – despite never having heard of this before today clearly know better than the people who have actually implemented this over many years in many countries,

Edit – you keep trying to find reasons why it can’t be done when actually it is already being done

Its a part of the solution. Its not the whole answer but it is a part of it

TJ, Please stop telling people what they do or don’t know. To the best of my knowledge you’re not omnipresent.

Its a part of the solution. Its not the whole answer but it is a part of it

Quite true.

There’s a high degree of flexibility in the grid due to the ability to vary frequency. I had to sample a hydro scheme and relied on the frequency meter to know whether it was worth waiting for them to turn on the generator sets.

As people got up, turned on the lights, radio, electric heater, kettle and toaster, the frequency meter slowly dropped from well over 50Hz to around 49.5Hz. If there was plenty of water in reserve they then switched on. When demand was very high or they were short of water they let the frequency drop further before generating. If things got really bad they dropped the voltage too. During the night they ran at up to 51Hz to get the clocks back on time.

Ian – gonefishing is claiming this cannot work – when its actually being used in other countries.

thanks for the edit.

Any idea how the wind turbines work Edukator? Do they rectify and then change back to AC with the appropriate frequency, or have some sort of infinitely variable gearbox, modify the prop pitch. Summink else?

FAO TJ – some hints and tips

The wind turbines I visited in Germany were constant speed, variable pitch, Ian, so they could feed straight into the grid at 50Hz. I don’t know what voltage they fed in at.

Cheers Edukator

After CaptJon’s suggestion, we can look forward to stuff like this 🙂

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 9:40 AM, dr sha wrote:
> OF:
> Thank you for clarification and a clear position on my existence on
> this website.
>
> Your argument certainly contains some valid points, some that are not
> and some that we share in common.

Would you please cite specific examples. What are the valid points?
which are not? This statement as is, is what is called a /false
surrender/. I did this once in debate club and was deducted 3 points.
This is a fallacy more specifically in which blindly conceded and
denounced points are ignored in an effort to diminish the validity by
attributing the same to me. /two wrongs/

> I’m sure that to some extent, I am trolling this site as you visit and
> invite othersd to troll, I am sure (The Podiatry Arena, for example).

I have invited no-one to troll, /false assertion/ and /appeal to
{pity|motive}/ and an outright lie. What I did however do was to
invite people to review your behavior on other forums so as to better
understand that the behavior you have demonstrated here is a well
established pattern in your dealings with those you disagree with.
“Trolling”, to establish a deffinition, is generally accepted as a
specific pattern of behavior in an individual’s interaction within a
group setting which is generally unproductive and inciting discord.
Simply observing a group to monitor the behaviors of an individual to
establish precident is not trolling (see ‘lurking’ maybe?)

> I am comfortable with that admission and like the welcome I recieved
> on The Podiatry Arena, dissent is not part of the fraternity on these
> sites misguided by passion and personal appeal and personal bias, gain
> and limelight.

No admission has been made on your part, the closest thing to an
admission within this post is a /false surrender/. Furthermore since I
have reviewed the entirety of your interactions with The Podiatry
Arena and it’s participants I can readily assert that the remainder of
this is an /appeal to {pity|motive}/ and /false blame/. Specifically
your behavior was evasive and deflective of probing questions which
were directed at establishing the justifiability of your statements
and clinical assertions of ‘fact’. As established here as well; when
asked for fact you evaded the probe and at best only provided /proof
by verbosity/ and anecdotal evidence. When called on this behavior you
resort to your tried and true /appeal to {authority|motive}/

> I have ecomnomic and scientific bias that I bring with me as baggage.
> Do you? (Troll some of the barefoot sites and their promotions and
> sponsored products).

/Plurium Interrogationum/ /appeal to motive/

> Do you think that you are right in your positions on this site?
> Wrong on any?

I engage in discourse. I communicate my ideas and listen to the ideas
of others. When my ideas are challenged, I inspect them first against
the counter. Should in my mind my position hold against the counter I
defend it with the logic that has supported my holding such position
within the exchange. If someone (or myself) is able to show the
fallacy of such supporting evidence then I abandon the position.

HOWEVER, the rightness or wrongness of a person’s position is not the
matter of this discussion, red herring, /moving the bar/. My position
in this matter, is your lack of ability to interact in a productive
manner in which the free flowing exchange of ideas that has embodied
this group (see thread: paleo pooping) is hampered by your bahavior.
Specifically your pathetic attempt to create derision among the ranks
to prove a point about the polarization it would cause. This action in
and of itself a logical fallacy of magnificent proportions: it is a
fallacy within a fallacy.

Specifically: The creation of a topic with the intent to polarize,
then using that polarization as evidence of your /appeal to
authority/.

> Let’s look at my argument of Tuck’s “take” on Munson’s work in 1912 as
> an example of where the evidence takes us when impacted by bias and
> conclusions can differ. That was the purpose of my posting this
> site. To show where your arguments are fglimsy and changeable with
> the next piece of news.

/moving the bar/ You keep insisting on changing the topic, a behavior
that is well estbalished here and with great history on TPA. A
deflection of blame. If you wish the engage Tuck about Munson et.al.
then do so. I have absolutely zero understanding of Munson’s work or
his assertions. Of which I suppose you were gambling on in the hopes
that I would latch onto it and attempt to defend thereby deflecting
the accounting of your behavior.

As to what you perceive as “changeable” with the next piece of “news”,
please see the paragraph about discourse above in which the operating
model for most enlightened individuals utilize when changing their
position. Sound logic and evidence supplanting a previously held
position whish has a fundamentally weaker underlying logic.

> This is a positive post thread for Barefoot’n long term in my
> opinion..

So in your opinion. A positive post is you posting with the intent to
polarize this group and create an argument and generate discord ‘among
the ranks’? Previously you have stated “I started it to see the
polarization it would cause and the demeaning
manner in which dissent would be dealt with.” In what way did you
foresee this being benneficial to interactions of this group? This
statement of your is a direct admission to the very deffinition of
‘trolling’

> One of us is wrong?
> So lets debate who is right.

/moving the bar/ again.

gonefishing is claiming this cannot work

Where have I said that this cannot work? Your challenge is to quote me directly from this thread where I have said that this cannot work. I have said that I do not think that this is the best use for excess energy, I have pointed out difficulties in apply this sort of set up but I have not said that it cannot work.

Post a quote or post an apology.

Sorry, a bit befuzzled here.

Is the article saying that NZ has been using people’s immersion heaters for years (to save 15%), or just that NZ has been doing demand management for years?

I’m pretty sure that demand management of large industrial consumers in the UK has been going on for decades and is nothing new. And people have been talking about turning people’s fridges and freezers off remotely for a while as well, and then worrying about all the problems that introduces if it a bug in the software causes the nations frozen pizzas to defrost.

Thats correct – to several GW of smoothing effect or a considerable % of the UK energy demand

Quite.

I thought we were talking about solving the problem of intermittent renewable supply rather than simply smoothing demand a bit?

I’ve now a had a read of what comes when you type “wind turbine control systems” into Google. Not surprisingly things have progressed since the turbines I visited were built and my “constant speed” comment does not apply to the latest designs so the days of seeing lots of perfectly synchronised turbines are numbered. The latest control systems use constant variation of rotor speed and pitch to optimise power output then an inverter to get the desired voltage.

The older constant speed designs were not very efficient at low wind speeds and the new ones much better according to GE’s blurb.

gonefishin
That’s a dreadful idea. Heat is the least useful form of energy. Pump storage to convert to potential is a much better idea.

gonefishin – Member

No, I dismissed it on the grounds that there are better solutions for the storage of energy.

You certainly were rubbishing it although you did not say outright that it would not work.

Teh point you would not accept is that this is possible without spending lots of money, that is proven tech and that it goes a long way to ease the issues of intermittant supply

Molgrips which is why I kept asking you to read the article and read what I wrote. That all it was ever was suggested as

…and i stand by everything I’ve said, including this bit

I am open to persuasion…

however apology accepted.

Teh point you would not accept is that this is possible without spending lots of money, that is proven tech and that it goes a long way to ease the issues of intermittant supply

I think you vastly underestimate the work and cost that would be required to retrofit such a system throughout the county and the technical difficulties in operating it.

Gonfishin – lets call it vagaries of text based communication then. you certainly appeared to me to be very dismissive without even considering it. I also think you vastly overestimate the difficulty in doing this – at least with the basic non feedback system. It has been fitted in other places with no problems

To me its the classic technophiles answer – its not high tech sexy enough so is dismissed. It realy can be that simple you know.

Plus the fact some people will not want other people to control their hot water tank.

it goes a long way to ease the issues of intermittant supply

I would say it goes a small distance towards the issues of intermittent supply.

And if you wanted to emphasise a particular point in the article you could’ve just said that instead of repeating ‘read the article!’ half a dozen times.

Some measures are really simple, Gonefish. in France our problem is not the intermittent nature of energy production but its constant nature. We’re 80% nuclear with renewables making up most of the balance. It’s the renewables, especially hydro, that add flexibility and mirror demand – air-con is a major use in the south and gets switched on when the sun shines. Rain falls in winter. The wind blows in winter.

So how do you get the population to reduce demand peaks nuclear can’t cope with? Financial incentives. We pay a standing charge based on the maximum power our meter will allow. 3kW, 6kW, 9kW, 12kW and so on. The more you want the more you pay. There’s also a night tarif with split metering. People connect their heating circuits, immersion heater (and sometimes washing machine and dish washer) to the night tarif circuit.

These measures are as old as the nuclear power stations and hopefully will shortly be refined with Italian style intellgent meters.

A tank with an immersion heater may be just an oversized kettle, but there are thought to be around 19m in Britain’s homes,

Yep we have one. The thing is, using ours to heat the water when there’s lots of leccy due to it being windy won’t do anything to decrease demand when it’s not windy, given we wouldn’t be using the immersion heater then anyway, as our main form of water heating is with gas. I wonder how many of the other 19m are in similar installations, and hence how much less use it is than that figure suggests.

Not that I’m dismissing the idea out of hand, as with “free” electricity it would help to reduce our gas consumption (hence CO2 emissions), just that it wouldn’t actually decrease the requirement for base load generation (as wind power fundamentally doesn’t).

aracer – well in that article he is talking about 55 GW of flexible denmand from the immersion heaters. Lets say its really only 20% of that. 10GW of smoothing effect – a great help. Its only on a scale of hours tho not weeks – but still a great help and as you say look holistically at CO2 not just electricity and it looks even better.

this is just one of the low tech cheap and simple things that I advocate to avert the energy crisis

this is just one of the low tech cheap and simple things that I advocate to avert the energy crisis

Yep -I agree with the idea. Just don’t pretend it will do much in the way of averting the energy crisis.

Cutting the peaks is one part, cutting demand overall the other, Aracer.

Have a look out of your window, lots of inefficient lighting providing so much light you can’t see the stars. We need less better directed light from efficient LED bulbs (well I can from here but I bet you can’t see many). I’ve got them in my home but the street lights outside are providing much less yellow light from many more watts.

Buildings are grossly inefficient. 10 000 KWh/year just to heat a British home is considered good! Make triple glazing, 5R walls and 7.5R roof the norm. And no you can’t have more than a 3W meter if you don’t comply.

Now think of all those open coolers, fridges and freezers churning away in supermarkets accross the land day and night. Ban the damned things! Make double glazing of them a legal requirement.

Decrease the base load, it’s easy.