What You Need To Know About Flexible Electricity Tariffs
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2024
- Demand Flexibility!
With a smart meter and a flexible electricity tariff you can modify your household electricity consumption to use more when there is a lot of renewable electricity in the grid which is also usually when electricity prices are lowest. This is called demand flexibility (or demand response or demand management).
In today's video we talk with Phil Steele from Octopus Energy about their Agile Octopus plan, how customers are connecting electric vehicles, batteries, air source heat pumps, hot water systems and other energy intensive appliances like pool heaters or pool pumps for those lucky enough to have them.
Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
00:19 "Baseload" electricity and offpeak pricing
01:32 Modifying demand to suit variable generation
02:48 How does Agile Octopus work?
05:00 What smart appliances can you use with a flexible tariff?
08:08 How much can customers save off their electricity bills?
09:41 Flexible tariff horror stories like in the Texas Freeze
10:16 Giving customers ownership and control
11:36 Fuel poverty
12:59 Is it too complicated?
13:39 Octopus Energy's "Big Switch On"
14:59 Can it scale beyond the enthusiastic early adopters?
🔗🔗Links:
Image at 01:22 from WattClarity:
wattclarity.com.au/wp-content...
You can find out more about Agile Octopus here:
octopus.energy/agile/
#technology #engineering #stem
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Thanks for watching the video Demand flexibility: Save the Climate, Save Money - Наука та технологія
Are flexible tariffs available where you live? Share your experiences, whether you chose that option or if you decided against it tell us why.
Directly interesting to me as we're in the UK and are already with a fully renewables supplier plus I have an EV and (as soon as the log jam in supply of hot tanks breaks up) will have a heat pump installed within a couple of weeks. I had been toying with the idea of changing to Octopus and probably would have in time but your video has made it a no-brainer. I particularly like the approach of the nerdy non-sharp/slick/fast-talking 'future technologies evangelist'.
We hadn't been favouring getting rooftop solar, as we already get low carbon electricity from the grid, but this 'agile' tariff plus battery storage may have changed my mind. Although you didn't mention it here, possible V2G (EV battery to grid) connection in future is doubly changing my mind Good on ya!
No we do not in New York State or at least within National Grid's portion. What we do have is a night and weekend rate that is significantly lower. The best a few will do is the majority of our laundry on the weekend. The handful with EV could do quite well for themselves
I'm an Octopus Energy customer, but I'm on their simpler "Go" tariff. This gives a rate in my area of 14p/kWh most of the time, but with 4 hours at 4p/kWh in the early hours of the morning. This allows me to charge my EV cheaply at night when demand is low. It keeps it simple having two prices at fixed times I think. Especially if you're out at work. For people who are at home all day and have a flexible schedule, the Agile tariff probably works great though.
Thanks for adding your experience! You're probably right that you can only get big savings if you're pretty involved currently. I do hope some appliance manufacturers get on board with some automation soon to get more people involved.
Discovered Thier expensive day rate is cheaper than my current (very cheap )flat rate.
Just need a smart meter.
Awesome video! I really liked your point at the end about making sure customers feel involved in the process, rather than simply submitting to requirements. There have been lots of ads recently in California encouraging the use of smart thermostats and flexible consumption, and they always sound so resigned; as if power failures are inevitable and their program is a plea for help. I would love to see more companies showing flexible usage as the cool new technology that it is and how consumers are getting the opportunity to take advantage of it.
Yes, I don't know too many people who have fuzzy feelings towards the energy utilities so I think probably any successful demand management programs will have to give customers a compelling reason to participate.
Hey Rosie, good video !!. In Australia with Amber Electric we get dynamic wholesale exposure (household). We get alerts (user controllable). I recently did some modelling which shows a switch to such a tariff WITH a battery provides an investment return around 6%. Last I heard Amber were doing an interface with Teslas Autobidder to control this.
Love this info! Thanks! 6% sounds pretty damn good... I personally am not sure I can make it work while I'm renting but I will suggest it to my dad who is mad keen on getting solar and a battery, and he's a retired data scientist so he loves playing around with stuff like this.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Yeah renting is a challenge ATM. I am happy to provide my S/Sheet if he wants a look. I've also been working on one for rental property owners using a shared payback model. I think it can work.
That's also 6% tax free so quite valuable for high income earners.
Yup. I've looked up our local energy generation/demand charts and am trying to squeeze in my usage between 8 and 11am when renewable generation is high and demand is low, even though time of use rates haven't started yet.
Love that enthusiasm! What country do you live in?
@@EngineeringwithRosie US - California 🙂
@@rubidot I think this will become a routine as grabbing an umbrella when the forecast is for rain.
I am with Amber in Australia so am on a wholesale price tariff (changing every 30 minutes as the wholesale price changes.) I use an app on my phone to warn me when prices are getting high, and when they do I turn off heating/cooling until the prices come down again. My monthly bills are about half of what they used to be (about $50 a month in summer, $100 a month in winter, instead of $100 a month in summer and $200 a month in winter previously.) I have gas for hot water and cooking, so the electricity covers other things (mainly heating/cooling, lighting, and of course anything that plugs into a power point.) My next place will be fully electric.
Hi Rosie, really enjoy the videos - thanks! Another satisfied Octopus customer here, I think they are really innovating in this space. Was on Agile until earlier this year, but switched to their Go tariff due to the ever increasing wholesale prices, hopefully that is a trend that will reverse at some point?!
Yes hopefully! I don't have a really good understanding of the UK market so I can't give any kind of expert prediction, but in general whlesale prices do seem to be trending down most places, though with more volatility.
Joined Octopus in December and only just got appointment next month for smart meter after many many phone calls and emails. You make it sound so easy.
Yes Phil did mention that there have been problems with smart meter installation. I'm sorry you are still waiting.
In the UK we have a disconnect from the generating companies through billing companies to customers. It seems that anyone can set up a billing company and buy electricity to sell to customers. Unfortunately most of these companies don’t have decent systems in place for billing, customer service and complaints and some go bust now and then.
I think that is pretty common around the world, and maybe even on purpose so that it's harder to price gouge? But it is not at all my area of expertise, so maybe someone else can comment on whether the separation is on purpose and why.
There was a lot of reluctance around smart meters in the UK and Octopus' smart tariffs have helped to invert this - to the point there are now waiting lists for smart meters. We're on old fashioned economy 7 for import and agile for PV export which works well and leaves our electricity usage as the inverse of the national average (i.e. use grid at night and export all day and in the summer into the evening).
That's interesting, you think that Octopus' popularity is the cause of their smart meter headaches?
@@EngineeringwithRosie only indirectly - there have been lots of headaches with smart-meters (that meant they weren't smart) but no one was really engaged. Basically there were no real customer benefits of a smart meter until the smart tariffs came along and now (more) customers are paying attention and grumbling when the meters don't work properly.
Many years ago I bought a dishwasher that had an ability to have a delayed start, so that it could be run at night. If folks paid for electricity at rates that varied by time of day, there would be motivation to use this sort of feature, which could be added to dishwashers, dryers, and washers.
I think it's very easy to see shortages or oversupply on the net frequency of your energy connection. If you make the hz a factor in the pricing you could stimulate consumption on a much smaller scale than grid wide.
Yes for sure! Did you see my video on vehicle-to-grid? That talks a lot about that. ua-cam.com/video/DnFAXtaUAWo/v-deo.html
It is not all sweetness and light with smart meters or to think electricity companies are your friend, they are to make money for shareholders and employees. Remember Smart Meters report back to the electric company often every 30 seconds your energy use. Long term every consumers individual peak use will be known and consequently each user will have a unique tariff. You won't have a cheap period. Look into what Smart Meters are realistically capable of from remote isolation capability etc.
In principle Smart Meters are ideal but look beyond the hype. As the Octopus representative as said, it favours the rich i.e Tesla owner, powerwall, heat pump etc etc. Not Mr and Mrs average.
No I agree with you, these companies aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts! But I also think that there is so much inefficiency in the current system that there is opportunity for the retailers and customers to both make/save quite a lot of money by changing. So I'm hopeful we'll see more of it.
Very thorough coverage of the residential demand response topic, highlighting it's a complex technical, economic, and social challenge. Raising awareness of how much our energy costs (and the true cost of fossil fuel based energy) is the begining of forming the solution(s).
Yes, I agree that more education will help a lot!
Colorado has had "Smart Switches" that moderate air conditioners for more than a decade. During heat waves, these switches prevent some fraction of air conditioners from running at any particular time. It doesn't reduce overall air conditioning load on the grid, but it moderates peak usage to prevent air conditioning triggering black or brown outs.
Amber Electric are doing that here in Australia, where residential customers effectively access Pool spot price pass through (with some cap protection to avoid the "Texas" scenario). I expect you've got a good % of Australian viewship, so worth seeing if you can get someone from Amber for a "local content" version of this same topic.
Yes you're right I should follow up with Amber for another video. I am not on their plan yet because I rent so I don't have much control over the major appliances or ability to add solar. I am in the market to replace my car though, so I am watching closely to see when bidirectional chargers finally get approved here. With an EV and a bidirectional charger (and assuming my landlord will let me install it), I am hopeful that even a renter can take advantage. But I haven't run the numbers yet. If it doesn't work out I think I'll try to convince my parents to give it a go.
@@EngineeringwithRosie I think the Amber plan was made for renters, because you can get the benefit of solar, in a way, without actually having it (by accessing lower prices during the day).
Kind of reminds me of a water district I was on. A hot dry summer and the district running short on water, costomers were asked to cut back on usage, we did. The district lost money so prices were raised to make up difference, suppose to be reduced later. They never did, prices stayed at the high rate. Now I'm completely offgrid with solar, I like it. But I wouldn't trust grid tied renewable energy, it will always be profit first customer second.
We have permanent water restrictions in many places in Australia, and when they were first introduced it was pretty tricky for the water utilities as they were supposed to encourage people to use less of the product that makes the utility's profit! But we were literally running out of water here so I guess we all just realised it had to be done. I don't recall if the prices went up after that, but water bills are so small compared to other essentials that I don't think it's front of mind for many.
very interesting - as always
Thank you! Cheers!
Daily Arbitrage of Electricity should include distance charges on the grid. It should be reasonably computed how much of the grid an electricity user or provider have used. Essentially, how far the power traveled. Example, a house with solar panels and batteries should have very small grid charges if the excess solar or stored battery power travels a very short distance. Grid distribution charges should be very small, if someone's power only travels a few hundred feet on the grid. Centralized power plants have very high grid usage because of the distance traveled. Tariffs should include this Grid Incentive to generate locally.
That would be cool, and I have had a similar thought before. But can they actually tell how far the electrons have travelled before you use them? I have been asking around and mostly people seem to think that they don't know at such a detailed level as would be needed. I have heard quite a few people mention that community batteries will be a very useful addition to the grid, apparently moreso than household or grid scale batteries. I don't know enough about it yet to say if I agree, but I am thinking that could be an interesting future video.
In Denmark all household consumers and businesses has a meter that is read every hour. The data is in a central database with the TSO.
We then buy electricity from a power company that buy the electricity for each hour and sell it to us. Prices are in general set at the Nordpool exchange.
Do customers see any difference in prices from hour to hour? I barely remember how it worked when I lived there, but do I remember right that they estimate your usage for the quarter and then refund or charge extra if they got it wrong? Seems like a strange way to do it if they're getting hourly readings!
@@EngineeringwithRosie there is a 24 delay in reporting hourly use and even longer for QA'ed numbers
@@EngineeringwithRosie
The electricity price now is 0,87 kr/kWh and at 03 am it will be 0,50 kr/kWh so that is when my car will be charging.
The taxes are fixed and make the total price around 2,0 kr/kWh for households without electricity heat pump heating or other discounts.
So now the power price does change by the hour and we do pay according to that. We have all digital meters read every hour from January 2020, I think it was.
Being able to have high electrical current home appliances (clothes dryers, water heaters, etc) query some kinda of public online API to know when the best time to run would be the smartest solution. Such appliances that are mostly "smart" these days being able to just have it automatically run at a time when it is lowest demand would make it require no effort. Tiered pricing or tariffs are rather pointless unless consumers have the ability to realistically react without having to become obsessive about it.
Yes I agree with you. I was so shocked to hear that people were willing to get up at 1am to start their dryer at the cheapest time! I don't think there is much future to expand beyond these hyper-engaged customers unless it can be set and forget. As you suggest, there is no technical reason why that couldn't be done.
You don’t even need smart appliances, just smart switches would do.
SonOff switches are about $10 for the high power ones. (No affiliation whatsoever)
They are programmable via an app and with a service like IFTTT they could even be linked to APIs of companies like Octopus.
@@Conservator. An earlier commenter was nearly correct, it is not possible to turn many appliances on from a smart switch (powering off is possible). Perhaps manufacturers can be encouraged to provide public APIs over WiFi could be encouraged so that Alexa etc. can control them .... Alexa "turn on the diswasher at 2:00am" ... Alexa "heat the water tank when the cost of electricity is cheap"
@@mickinmerton8053
Yes, I agree. Whenever an appliance is controlled via a microprocessor, the chances they can be started with smart switch are almost zero.
Most microprocessor controlled dishwashers and washing machines have a delayed start option though.
I am with Amber electric too and I have my EV charger come on when it am exporting from solar, or I can have it come on over night only when the price drops below a rate of my choice. Amber has a API that works with a thing call Home Assistant which can control a number of devices at home.
That octopus from octopus energy gives me strong Hydra vibez. Someone call Shield :D
ha ha
This works best when you have solar panels and a battery bank so the energy can be soaked up when prices are low and used when prices are high.
As usual, the people who would benefit most are the poorer who typically can’t afford to invest in a battery bank or solar panels.
Variable prices can really hurt users especially during the 4-7pm period when kids watch tv, do homework on the computer and food is cooked.
Aaand then you mention fuel poverty at about 12:00. :)
Yes definitely. That's why I really hope that governments will put the required appliances into social housing. The payback period isn't too bad in many cases, and those are the people who can most benefit from saving money on their electricity bills. I just think it is such a perfect post-covid stimulus project. Governments need to spend money to stimulate the economy, so something that has a high upfront cost (with much of it from labour for installation) and pays it back over the following years should be perfect. I am going to write to my local politicians to suggest it.
And I *definitely* don't think that flexible tariffs should be forced on anyone. If that happened it would be very unfair and basically be poor households subsidising rich ones. I have never heard of an enforced flexible tariff, and I can't see that it's likely it's going to happen.
If we would be able to tie EVs with two way charging to the grid, we would create huge buffers that could potentially solve just about all balancing problems.
The example in the video showed a 10-20kWh battery. Most EVs have 50-100kWh batteries. The potential is enormous.
Maybe not (yet) in Australia where EVs aren’t as popular but here in The Netherlands (thanks to tax incentives) we have loads of EVs that could form a tremendous buffer for the grid. ‘All’ we need is two way charging.
I am actually in love with V2G technology 😍😍 I made one video on it already, and will no doubt make some more in the future!
ua-cam.com/video/DnFAXtaUAWo/v-deo.html
In some ways it doesn't suit Aus because we don't have many EVs, but in other ways maybe it's perfect for Aus, since we haven't got much infrastructure yet, perhaps we still have the chance to roll it all out with V2G capability built in? Maybe that is me being too optimistic though because I really do love the tech. I personally think a market like Texas is perfect for V2G (or maybe V2-house). They have lots of renewables and seem to love their independence!
@@EngineeringwithRosie
We share the same love! 😆
(I don’t know how I could have missed your video on V2G, I’m watching it now;)
@@EngineeringwithRosie
Btw: My offer to setup a Discord server for you still stands. Just give me a shout when you’re ready for it. I can setup a demo in 30 minutes. It’s not much work, just FYI.
@@Conservator. Thanks for this offer! I am planning to set one up, and have some help organised already. But it would be good to get your input on what you'd features you'd like to see included if you have any ideas?
@@EngineeringwithRosie Hi Rosie,
Setting up a Discord server isn’t much work.
The trick is to get enough people engaged so it stays ‘alive’. You’d probably want channels for discussions and channels with references.
As you’ll form a community and you won’t be able to monitor everything on your own, it would be good to get some help from people you trust and who are willing to perform admin and moderator roles.
It’s good to have some rules for every member.
Simple things like not spamming, be nice, no hate, no ‘adult stuff’ etc. There are templates. I can send you one if you’d like that.
As your community grows you can develop the rules. Also guidelines for moderating can be handy once you’ve more than a few moderators. That will create consistency and also help new mods get up to speed quickly.
I’d recommend to start really simple and use incidents (like an inappropriate comment) to develop the rules and later guidelines.
Let me know if I can be of any help. FYI: I’m a retired project manager. I’m interested in renewable energy (and lots of other things 😉) and I like your channel but that’s obvious 😁.
I’ll drop you an email so that you you can contact me that way if you’d want that.
Just like air source heating pumps and air conditioners, it should be practical to modify refrigerators so that during summer time they would exhaust the heat outside of the house. Combined with variable tariffs, it might be practical to make ice during the peak solar availability for use in evening air conditioning and refrigeration.
I have just switched to Octopus but have avoided their 'Agile' tariffs, both for buying and selling electricity. Why? Basically this arbitrage is hard work, and I am happy to pay electricity companies extra money for sorting it out for me. While I am obsessive about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, I want to live a life in my home, not devote my life to optimizing the way I consume electricity. Currently, the 'Agile' rates are definitely for enthusiasts only.
That's really interesting, thanks for adding your experience. I actually suggested a flexible tariff to my dad because he is a retired data scientist (also passionate about the environment) and I thought it would be an interesting project for him. So basically, I suggested it because I thought it would be a lot of complex work! But I do hope that we get some more appliance manufacturers working together with companies like Octopus to make it easier for those who don't have so much time to spend optimising.
7:59 why wake up at night for that when you can just buy like 10€ timer that does it for you :D
Unfortunately, these days, a lot of appliances won't switch on from the plug - they need a manual switch to be pressed for their function to start. The timers work well for lights, but not so great for heaters, dishwashers and washing machines.
@@kufena fair.
Seems like there's an opportunity for some partnerships between manufacturers and energy retailers. I really think that will be the only way forward, if appliances come with the inbuilt smarts to set and forget.
A solution could be something like the SwitchBot Smart Switch Button Pusher to actuate "dumb" appliances.
Another great video! I wish we had a flexible tariff in Ontario. We have fixed ToU rates.
Thanks 😀 I hope flexible tariffs will be available everywhere within a few years, but then I have been thinking that for about ten years already so maybe it will take longer!
Just be aware that in Texas during their blackout that prices per kwh rose up so high that people went into debt to turn on the lights. Price caps are essential.
Too many stories to link but search YT for ‘Texas electricity prices during storm’
@@SirHackaL0t. that was partly due to the regulations, or lack of them, involved with pricing. I really don't mind a company making decent bank if they prepared well. (or just got lucky.) I can't accept price gouging in a time if emergency, with profits many fold over expenses. There is a line between reasonable profits and predatory profiteering.
@@SirHackaL0t. Yep, that was totally unacceptable and also foreseeable so it's no wonder people are angry. I believe that the companies involved suffered (and in at least one case went bankrupt, I didn't read why but I assume lots of customers were unable to pay) so I don't believe any companies would use that as an intentional strategy moving forwards. Well, I hope not anyway. I would certainly be looking for a price cap if I were to sign up for a flexible tariff.
Between hydro imported from Quebec and wind along the Manitoba border and two nuclear plants there is no incentive for ToU rates in Ontario
A lot of us were oversold on the benefits of solar energy in Australia which is why solar users in Australia have no faith in the regulators because once bitten twice shy
So given the lack of faith in regulators who considered the needs of non solar owners over us who borrowed money to buy plant.
So any future plant upgrades will be for me to go off grid
Thanks for sharing that Tara. I know a lot of people with similar experiences to you! It's part of the reason why I said I doubt people are going to want to step in and help the utilities out, just for the warm fuzzy feelings! I think with a flexible tariff and a battery added to your solar panels you should be able to reduce the amount of elelctricy you purchase by a lot. Going totally offgrid is a bit trickier, you'd either need a huge battery or a diesel generator or something like that.
Octopus Agile gamifies energy and appeals to our inner nerd
That's a good way of putting it!
Flexible tariffs are good in theory but not sure how fair, and accessible to all customers. I worked in an industrial setting where we curtailed power usage when prices were high. The plant had built-in redundancies to compensate. The homeowner, when the temperature is -25° C or +30° C lacks redundancy.
Yes, you definitely want safeguards in place so that customers don't end up with huge bills in extreme weather like Texas.
Personally I think this is a brilliant idea, but I think it's important to point out that there are a couple of big issues. Firstly agile tariffs like this are a problem when the average wholesale prices are driven unusually high, such as by the current natural gas shortages that we're experiencing in Europe. The average consumer needs protecting from this or simply migrates away from an agile tariff during these periods and then you quickly lose the benefit to the grid. As I write this, Octopus are strongly recommending on their web site that people don't use their Agile tariff due to the current wholesale prices!
Secondly whilst I can see myself adjusting my lifestyle to benefit from dips and avoid peaks in the wholesale price, I wonder what proportion of the population would do this. The vast majority of people just want to use electricity at their convenience and simply wouldn't bother to change this, and/or indeed don't have the knowledge required about electricity to do it effectively.
On balance I think it's better that the role of smoothing out the troughs and peaks remains with the electricity supplier, in the longer term at least. This will continue to encourage development of grid level storage technologies and ultimately benefit everybody rather than just the interested minority who have the time and money to do it themselves.
Hi Rosie. First of all I would like to thank you for all the great content. It is extremely interesting and I have fun and learn at the same time while watching your videos. Question: how/from where would you recommend to start if I (someone who has never been involved with anything energy/engineering related) have an idea/design in mind for a wind turbine? Should I start working on it in some software ? Should I try making a prototype myself or leave it to professionals?
Hi, thanks and great question! I strongly suggest that you start by making your idea. Just a really small scale version out of whatever you can find that's suitable. I've seen people use plastic cd cases, bits of cardboard, wood, pvc pipe for the blades, and you can either buy a generator off the shelf or if money is an issue you can reuse something like an old washing machine motor. Play around with your design to see whether it behaves like you thought and what its flaws are. Once you've gotten the design to something you think is good, *that* is the time to make a computer model, maybe 3D print a refined design. Do some more testing and refine the design and then look into involving professionals and bulk manufacturing. If you skip the first few steps and rush straight into engineering etc, you will likely waste a lot of money on a design that turns out to not do what you expected.
Good luck! And please tag Engineering with Rosie on Facebook or Instagram if you get some photos or video you want to post of your progress.
@@EngineeringwithRosie ,thanks a lot for your reply. I will definitely tag "Engineering with Rosie" if (when) I have something to show! :)
Waiting for the delivery services to switch their van fleets to Electric Vans (EVans). These consumers have a large incentive to chase the smallest price fluctuation as well as a huge consumption with a large electrical connection. Every consumer that is helping to balance the grid offsets a customer that is unware or unwilling. We don't need everyone to be on a flex tariff.
Yes, that would be a huge extra capacity. I wonder whether their business model needs them to be delivering all day however? Not sure if they'll be able to charge a lot during periods with lots of solar. Let's see how it plays out, I am sure EVans are not far away now.
I'm personally not that worried about the energy required for air conditioning, a lot of need for power for air conditioning tends to correlate very well with strong sunlight, and with solar PV already so cheap and still getting cheaper, air conditioning will probably not be much of an issue ten years from now, and, obviously generally decreasing during that time.
Demand Management should be as automatic and "invisible" as possible for the vast majority of people, and come with as little disadvantages as possible.
Personally I think there is a lot of potential in "low-hanging fruit" for Demand Management. Refrigerators could "store energy" by freezing water when electricity is cheap, sure it takes space, but you don't need many liters of ice to keep a standard fridge cold over peak demand. "Normal people" need a complete product with dual thermostats, and so on, but the effect can be achieved with a bunch of aluminium cans with water in closest to the evaporator, and adjusting the thermostat so the fridge will freeze the water in the cans when it has power, but not go much colder than what's needed for that. The same principle could be achieved in freezers, if you use brine with some appropriate freezing point.
Air conditioners could do the same, space is not always so critical as in i a fridge or freezer, so it would not be necessary to use phase transition in a thermal battery.
But, personally I think most air conditioners should be counter current indirect evaporative coolers, possibly assisted by a compressor when needed like in very humid and or hot areas.
But then again, we use energy to heat a lot of tap water, and use a lot of energy to cool (and dehumidify) the air in the same buildings. It feels like it shouldn't take Elon Musk to figure out a better way to do that. The needs won't match up exactly, but for the parts that do much is won. Even in mostly cold areas such a system could be very beneficial if used to reduce the temperature in the building and saving that heat, when no one is there, instead of just stop heating.
Wow, lots of interesting ideas here, thanks for commenting! I think you have hit the nail on the head here: "Demand Management should be as automatic and "invisible" as possible for the vast majority of people."
When was this recorded because it is worth mentioning that the Agile tariff is all but finished in the current energy climate. Most customers simply could not afford the high price of Agile across the full day.
It was recorded well before the gas price increase. I agree, it would be interesting to see what Octopus are doing in rseponse to the current price spike, and whether they will change the structure of the plan in response to what's happened recently. In Australia there is a company called Amber Electric who offer a flexible tariff similar in concept to Agile. And they use a different safety mechanism to avoid very high prices. They cap the year's (or quarter's maybe, I'm not totally sure) bill at a maximum equal to if they'd been on the flat rate tariff. Maybe that is better? But of course when there are very high prices in the wholesale market, those prices are eventually going to be passed on to customers one way or another. If high prices persist then we'll see flat rates go up eventually too.
@12:47 regarding wealth people getting most of the benefit- those wraith people are the early adopters that are driving the future forward for the Benfield of us all. Which would you prefer - them buying an oversized wasteful house, or solar+battery+smart appliances?
He says, "We don't have that ... level of extreme on the wholesale market as Texas has had there." Does he mean there is a lower regulated price cap? Or they just haven't had a grid-wide electricity shortage yet?
And when he says Octopus has a 35 pence/kWh cap, if the wholesale price were higher than that, is Octopus paying the difference? Are they financially prepared for an extreme event?
These are important questions about how the system can fail, and they only got 30 seconds in the interview.
So my understanding is that they are using day ahead prices, and that the UK regulator caps prices at 1£ per kWh, so you could never see what happened in Texas. And further to that, Octopus have a cap on what they'll charge customers at 35p. I didn't explicitly ask, but I believe the difference is covered by Octopus, presumably out of the profit they get at all other times.
I get why you want poorer people to benefit from this but almost all new technologies have been paid for my the more wealthy earlier adopters initially. If the more affluent aren't paying for this new technology then who is ? It is a noble goal but the real world still revolves around money. (Agree or disagree, you are still my favorite engineer. Keep up the great work.)
Thanks! And I absolutely agree that the world revolves around money and the fastest way to get action on climate change is to get green techs to be more cost effective than fossil fuel alternatives.
I don't understand why the daily energy usage patterns are not publicised more. If we could engage a percentage of the population to avoid 4-7pm (in the UK), it could make a huge difference.
I don't know either!
This is a very interesting topic. As a US viewer, a large challenge locally is how cheap existing electric rates are. In my general area residential rates are around a flat $0.11/kWh (0.0935 euro/kWh, or 0.0792 pounds/kWh) making it quite difficult to justify the time, energy, and money necessary to optimize the flexible tariff based on cost alone. I also am of the opinion that these initiatives will not spread beyond early adopters unless the average consumer is forced to do so, or the price of not doing so increases significantly.
I had some more questions about the flexible tariff caps that didn't seem to be addressed in the video. Phil mentioned that the price was capped between 4 and 7, does this mean 4pm-7pm? Is there a similar price cap in place for emergencies?
Yes 4pm to 7pm. They don't have such a volatile market as we saw in Texas, so they don't have to worry about such high price spikes. I don't actually know how the UK manages extreme and unexpected weather events like the Texas Freeze, but my understanding is that it isn't through price signals.
It's interesting that you say electricity prices aren't currently high enough to get people acting. In Australia I feel like people are quite obsessed with electricity prices (and petrol/gas prices), way beyond what's rational. So perhaps Australia is the perfect place to get flexible tariffs working on a large scale.
I live in Northern California PG&E is our power utility. We have Solar panel and an electric car. That allows us to be on a 3 tier usage system. It is adjusted by time of day only. No demand influence. Pick usage is 0.35 KWH but they only pay O.06KWH for my solar power but that is the cost at night 11PM to 6AM. That when the car is charged
I am considering building my own power wall from old Chevy Volt batteries. I want to get off the utility
PGE company kills people every year because of their corrupt management, I feel.
In The Netherlands almost all houses now have smart meters. We however don’t have flexible pricing (yet).
Lots of people have solar panels and the can see how much energy they use and produce via an app. Just the awareness makes people save energy.
Thanks for sharing that. If you've got the smart meters, and no flexible tariffs yet I wonder if there is some sort of regulation that doesn't allow it, or if the number of energy retailers is limited.
But you are right about awareness being the first, biggest step. I worked at a water utility early in my career, and people there always talked about the huge drop in water useage that occurred when water meters were introduced. Even though the charge was super low.
@@EngineeringwithRosie
We only have day and night tariffs. There are plenty of energy suppliers so I guess it must a regulatory thing.
2 tariffs here in Italy, the cheaper one starting from 7 p.m. and causing everyday a surge in demand and causing the methane peaker plants to kick in. Far from ideal, unless you own those plants. It is a hidden form of subsidy to the fossil fuel industry.
Rosie, can you send CO2 through a water chamber with super algae and have the result be oxygen be the by product? I saw a show on this decades ago and wondered why it was not implemented. Please comment.
If only all this effort went into finding a more efficient way to Manufacturer steel, in stead of bandaids for the home owners usage ?
Solar hot water systems why isn't the Australia government pushing that at all ? yet heating water is a massive environmental kick in the nutz 👍
I will leave the question on why the Aus government isn't doing much useful on (any kind of) renewable energy... it just makes me mad. There are plenty of good renewables policies in the states though, those are much less depressing to look at!
And green steel is an area that I think Australia is pushing pretty hard (mostly from industry but I have to give credit to the fed gov for providing some support in that area), with some promising sounding inititives. I will make a video on that soon. The technology is pretty close, the economics and trading mechanisms (e.g. green certificates for commodities like steel) are actually more of a challenges, in my opinion. I have just recently done an interview on green certificates (to be released in a few weeks), we talk a bit about steel there, but not the technical challenges.
Hi Rosie , you should contact phil from octopus again , the uk has really moved on with octopus , so we can earn money by not using or exporting back to the grid , with DFS and you don’t need to be just on agile either
People are happy to recycle which is a ‘lifestyle compromise’ so people should be happy to not run their dishwasher between 4 and 8 in the evening. Also at 9.10 he says the gentleman reduced their energy consumption by 90 per cent…. I think he meant reduced the cost of his bills by 90 percent…..
Yes I agree that a lot of people would likely be happy to help the grid adapt to more renewables by modifying their consumption, if they knew how and trusted that it actually helped do something more than just give profit to the utilities.
..just shows how in just 7 months things can not age well - the UK electric prices have gone and will go up over 50% from the 1st April! - all the best prices have gone!
Fantastic idea, but it will be perverted by the energy companies and ensure that customers end up paying far more, just to line the pockets of the energy companies. When origin charges me 30c but only pays 5-10c for solar i generate, clearly the power is on the energy companies side, and they know it. They will always win.
Sounds like you need a home battery or EV with 2-way charger! Prices are coming down pretty fast so I bet in a couple of years it'll be worth it for you to get a battery and never export at that measly rate.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Absolutely, but everytime I have gotten a quote the number has actually gone up :) Last quote for a battery was $15k, so while it may be dropping, I am not seeing it yet.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Additionally, my point still stands for low income households, I am fortunate enough to be able to buy solar/battery, but for others it is a significant outlay. Low income households are going to increasingly be strangled by power companies because they have no way out, while well off households can cut their dependence almost completely. The energy market over the next few years and decades is going to be very interesting, and without regulation, not in a good way.
@@MrCamcross Cost of production of batteries is going down, still demand is increasing faster than production capacity, so consumers pay more, in some categories of products with batteries in them. So your observation is probably correct. This will not go on forever, home batteries will become much cheaper. As an example, Tesla has both more than doubled the capacity in their powerwall, compared to first generation, which led to a higher price, and increased price because of lack of production capacity. It might be that in the case of Tesla, they're also prioritizing their V3 chargers, which uses batteries not only to achieve higher charging power capacity than the grid connection, but also adjust somewhat to the grid situation.
All that said, the consumer price of home batteries is likely to drop very much in a not too distant future, when cost of production is even lower than now, and production capacity starts to catch up with demand.
Personally I don't think low income households are going to increasingly be strangled by power companies in general, they don't have much more to pay, and the companies want to make as much money as possible, with the least effort/investments, so they will focus on the easy big money, as usual. Any worsening of the situation for the poorest will probably be by unintended "collateral damage".
Also, you don't need solar and a home battery to choose when to run some appliances. And, the more production on the grid the cheaper power will be. Here in Sweden were shutting down nuclear power reactors, mainly because new power generation, mostly wind power, is pushing down the market price of electricity.
@@fishyerik hopefully your right, although grid storage batteries may continue to drive the demand above supply for some time
Please make video on kite power
I plan to! I am thinking of doing a livestream. In the longer format I could cover several companies and how their designs differ, plus answer viewer questions. Do you think that would be good, or would you rather see a short video on that? Or maybe both!
@@EngineeringwithRosie Live stream would be great! Thank you for responding
One of those situations where an NDA is applicable for all the wrong reasons.
I actually don't understand what you mean 🤨 can you clarify?
Rosie,
I think you are misinformed about how thw grid used to work, yes there was base load and in the U.K. anyway, that was nuclear which is inflexible. Coal, hydro and gas are flexible and load balance, for the most part automatically as the generators are governer controlled thus automatically balancing supply and demand. Pump storage was developed so that the occasional spike in demand or loss of say a generator could be controlled by the inherrent quick response of hydro generators.
There also seems to be a misconception that if you draw power when there is more renewable generation it is greener, it is not. Basically modifying when you draw power alters the amount of dispatchable generation, but it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Remember renewables generate at maximum available power 99% of the time, and are effectively base load suppliers dispatchables adjust to meet the rest. So whether they do it at peak time or off peak is irrelevant.
The reason, in the past anyway, was to encourage nightime use of power when we had the economy seven traiffs and using electric storage heaters was to reduce the night to day load discrepancy. If a lot more load could be switched to night time use (and as I'm sure you are aware, electric heating is relatively heavy load) the overall generating capacity can be smaller and hence cheaper as fewer power plants were required. I don't know if that idea actually worked out in practice howeve?.
"yes there was base load and in the U.K. anyway, that was nuclear which is inflexible. Coal, hydro and gas are flexible"
Many coal plants are slow to ramp up and down. They can easily take hours or more to make a cold start.
"it is robbing Peter to pay Paul"
No, it's not. It's a genuine benefit to shift demand to the times when there's more supply.
@@seneca983 Coal plants actually take days to start from cold. Even the turbines need to be warmed up slowly.
Once on line though they are flexible and can vary output to match normal demand fluctuations.
@@seneca983
Not for the consumer. It's also difficult to shift demand due to normal work and daily routines. It is no solution, it helps the grid somewhat but can disrupt industry that needs all the help it can get.