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Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
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tom66:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 10:46:22 am ---Have you thought about loads that run continuously for long hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise.

--- End quote ---

Maybe washing machines can't run at night for some machines (though my Bosch direct-drive machine is deadly silent even fully loaded at 1400rpm, it came with the house and I thought it wasn't working right at high speed until I looked carefully at the clothes moving).  But dishwashers?  They are not really that loud.  Maybe 45-50dB(A).  If you sleep in your kitchen you might complain, but you're not going to notice them otherwise.  The dryer is the loudest of all my appliances, mostly because the compressor mountings on my one need a bit of love.

Really, you are creating artificial boundaries to justify your position:  I lived in both a 1 bed flat and now a 4 bed house, and I would have no issue running either the washer or dishwasher overnight (because I frequently did even in the flat, I was on a deemed dual rate tariff, which basically meant I had no choice but to have cheaper off peak and slightly more expensive on peak, just how the building worked.)  With the bedroom door closed, you couldn't hear either running.

As for other loads, like computers, entertainment etc.  Of course they need to be powered all the time, but that is not the point.  Electricity would always be there. The idea is to shift as much as we can, not everything, into the times when energy is most available.  Thereby limiting the amount we need to convert into inefficient stores of energy, like hydrogen.  The luckier households might decide to invest in home battery storage to further arbitrate on this pricing disparity, though market laws would tell us in the long term as everyone does this, no one would win.  But early adopters, or those who combine with solar, may benefit.
Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 10:46:22 am ---Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, you can think about them until cows come home. If you want to penny pitch and make your life miserable, you can of course choose to watch TV only during cheap hours, and sit in darkness, and save a few EUR a year.

Look, I understand that you don't have electric heating (direct or heat pump), electric hot water heating, or an EV. You heat both your house and hot water with natural gas.  You have not much to automate, and very little to gain. You could time the washing machine and dishwasher like tom66 does, but if you don't like the noise at night, then you can't do that either. Your case cannot be optimized.

Yet, for example here we have hundreds of thousands of households who spend 5MWh/year in such non-timeable random loads and 20MWh/year in direct electric heating, latter of which can be trivially automated. Electric water heaters (storage tank type) are also extremely common here and other Nordic countries. Typical size here is 240 to 300 liters with 3kW resistor set.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: tom66 on April 16, 2023, 10:52:51 am ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 10:46:22 am ---Have you thought about loads that run continuously for long hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise.

--- End quote ---

Maybe washing machines can't run at night for some machines (though my Bosch direct-drive machine is deadly silent even fully loaded at 1400rpm, it came with the house and I thought it wasn't working right at high speed until I looked carefully at the clothes moving).  But dishwashers?  They are not really that loud.  Maybe 45-50dB(A).  If you sleep in your kitchen you might complain, but you're not going to notice them otherwise.  The dryer is the loudest of all my appliances, mostly because the compressor mountings on my one need a bit of love.

Really, you are creating artificial boundaries to justify your position.

--- End quote ---
It is not my position, it is what -I'm quite sure about- most people will want. I only outline how electricity is used in general. You still didn't answer the question to provide research about what people actually want from a utility company. What I see in the NL is that most people have long term fixed price contracts or contracts with prices that change twice a year. Companies that offer spot prices are rare and have very few customers. IOW: any proposed solution that is based on spot pricing will have an extremely large uphill battle to gain acceptance & market penetration. At least in the NL...
nctnico:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 16, 2023, 11:01:52 am ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 10:46:22 am ---Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed.

--- End quote ---
Look, I understand that you don't have electric heating (direct or heat pump), electric hot water heating, or an EV. You heat both your house and hot water with natural gas.  You have not much to automate, and very little to gain. You could time the washing machine and dishwasher like tom66 does, but if you don't like the noise at night, then you can't do that either. Your case cannot be optimized.

--- End quote ---
Actually my case can be optimised by adding storage. Either locally or at the grid level.

Someone:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 10:46:22 am ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 15, 2023, 05:33:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 15, 2023, 02:51:59 pm ---Did you do any research whether people are willing to have energy contracts based on spot prices and requiring people to live along how the wind blows and the sun shines?
--- End quote ---
Which part about the automated control you failed to understand?  :palm:

It makes no sense to time your coffee making or dishwashing for cheap prices, that's real penny pitching. But you can automate the large loads which are not sensitive to exact timing. If you have those, not everyone do of course. Probably the only reason you don't grok this is because you don't, but it's blatantly obvious to those who do.

--- End quote ---
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise. And then there are simple things like cooking dinner on an electric stove / using a microwave around dinner time. If you make a carefull analysis, you'll see that a significant amount of electricity use can't be timed at all.

--- End quote ---
Baloney, straight up nonsense. The majority energy use in most developed nations are transport, and HVAC:
https://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml
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