Mandatory Economy 7 for all?

[GarethC]

Just thinking, it's still the case that demand is much lower (what, half as much?) overnight as during the day.

What if - everybody- was required to be on an E7 type tariff? Would that have a beneficial impact?

[Oldgreybeard]

If this was combined with people load shifting to the off-peak period, then the effect would very definitely be positive, although the overall saving from levelling the peaks wouldn't be as high as 50%, more like 20%, I think. There's usually around a 10GW difference between day and night demand, so it might be possible to reduce the peak demand by as much as half of this figure, I think. That's a big peak demand reduction, several power station's worth.

The problem is changing behaviour, though. For many they either won't be able to load shift much of their demand, or may not be willing to do so, even for a significant saving on their bill. We're on E7, and load shift to the point where we barely use any peak electricity at all. For the last two months we've used no peak rate electricity at all - our consumption has been 100% off-peak. We're very much an exception, though, and before we had the battery system only about 56% of our consumption was off-peak, and that was with making sure that the heating, hot water, car charging, washing machine etc were only ever on overnight. Doing that involved a bit of thought and planning, so it's debatable as to whether many would be bothered to try and manage demand in this way.

[AE-NMidlands]

It's not just about the gains at first apperances though...

It would mean new meters for about 80% of houses (so equipment and major labour costs), with embodied energy etc. I know all meters are supposed to be changed periodically, but I bet they aren't swapped nearly as frequently as they should be. Anyway this have to be would counted against the benefit...

Then you would have the rabid libertarians complaining that the state had no right to try to influence behaviour, even if anyone with a couple of brain cells could save money by it... Just look at the objections to metered water for examples. "You can't increase the cost to huge families with tons of nappies and children's clothes to wash!" I have about a dozen responses to that bluster.

(We have an absolutely profligate neighbour who won't have a meter. Saying "We all have to have a shower every day" is a smoke-screen to excuse repeated use of pressure washers on runs, garden paths, multiple cars, lawn sprinkler, etc. if you ask me.)

(especially as I can hear people saying "Wait until we are all on meters - then the metered rate will rocket up in price. It's only cheaper to have a meter now to suck you in." It has been said here before or at the old place, and being a cynic I don't doubt universal E7 would be bent after universal uptake either.)
The other thing I have been meaning to say after each (mains) load-shifting discussion is that we had a "safeguarding" visit after we came to the notice of 999 people (not us, a false alarm) but they wanted to emphasise how dangerous it was - in their eyes - to run washing machines and tumbler dryers overnight, i.e. unsupervised.
A

[Oldgreybeard]

I'll second the problem with a lot of people that really won't want to bother about shifting demand. A few years ago I helped out at a few sessions run by our local "transition group", giving advice on energy saving. Amazing just how negative a lot of people were about even very simple energy saving measures. Many will see needing to plan ahead and load shift as being just an infringement of their freedom to behave as they wish, rather sadly.

[Stinsy]

I think the 3-tariff model is best for the grid!

Peak could be double the cost of standard during 4-7pm. Off-peak could be half the price of standard 11pm-6am.

The problem with mandating ToU is that only half of households have smart meters.

[Oldgreybeard]

What I've never really been able to get my head around is why the wholesale price of electricity isn't as closely related to demand as I thought it should be. When I was tracking Agile pricing this was pretty clear, demand could be low, yet the Agile price very often didn't reflect that at all. Not sure why there's an apparent disconnect between price and demand, logically I'd have thought that the two would be in lock-step. There must be other factors that influence the wholesale price a lot, other than just supply and demand.

[Stinsy]

What I've never really been able to get my head around is why the wholesale price of electricity isn't as closely related to demand as I thought it should be. When I was tracking Agile pricing this was pretty clear, demand could be low, yet the Agile price very often didn't reflect that at all. Not sure why there's an apparent disconnect between price and demand, logically I'd have thought that the two would be in lock-step. There must be other factors that influence the wholesale price a lot, other than supply and demand.

Supply is just as important as demand!

If nukes are all online and the wind is blowing /sun is shining then the price will drop even if demand is high.

[Oldgreybeard]

Supply is just as important as demand!

If nukes are all online and the wind is blowing /sun is shining then the price will drop even if demand is high.

Yes, but as I wrote, there doesn't seem to be a tight supply/demand linkage with the wholesale price. Looking at the Gridwatch data would suggest that the off-peak price period should match pretty closely to the E7 time slot, typically demand is much lower (usually around 10GW or more lower) during the overnight period. However, the wholesale price only seems to dip for around 4 or 5 hours, if that on some days.

It seems that the normal market forces that should dictate that a surfeit of supply over demand would result in a drop in price doesn't wholly apply, so there must be something else at work that is impacting on price overnight.

[nowty]

I understand that in the 4pm to 8pm slot its significantly higher almost no matter what.

But out of those hours and especially at night if its windy its always cheap.