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This plug socket tells you if your energy is green
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NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: Someone on April 11, 2022, 10:51:07 pm ---Around the world residential consumers are somewhere in the middle of the electricity priority queue, big customers often have penalty clauses so can be blacked out with agreed compensation (usually having negotiated lower pricing for the rest of the year).

--- End quote ---
Bring that as an option to residential as an incentive to invest in some sort of backup power.
djococaud:
Actually the plug could be decoding the peak/off peak hours signal (on top of the 50-60Hz mains)...It just needs a small microcontroller...

...But It can also be a complete scam (with a random powered led...) !

Please send one to clive ! ;D
tom66:

--- Quote from: djococaud on April 12, 2022, 06:00:44 am ---Actually the plug could be decoding the peak/off peak hours signal (on top of the 50-60Hz mains)...It just needs a small microcontroller...

...But It can also be a complete scam (with a random powered led...) !

Please send one to clive ! ;D

--- End quote ---

Most likely it has a wifi module in it and it's tied to GridCarbon or similar.
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alex.rogers/gridcarbon/
MK14:

--- Quote from: djococaud on April 12, 2022, 06:00:44 am ---Actually the plug could be decoding the peak/off peak hours signal (on top of the 50-60Hz mains)...It just needs a small microcontroller...

...But It can also be a complete scam (with a random powered led...) !

Please send one to clive ! ;D

--- End quote ---

I also wonder, how many people in a household, are actually going to bother to take notice of the colour changes, on the LED.
If you want something done, such as switching on a radio, charging your mobile phone, shaving, hairdryer, PC use, etc. A person is rather likely to just want to get it done and not want to wait around for this tiny LED light, to decide to turn green, maybe, later that day.

I suppose what is really needed, is the device itself, such as a dishwasher or washing machine. To have an option, which when on (set), doesn't start the units wash cycle, until the cheapest electricity units (usually off-peak), are available.

The button/feature would be called something like "Delay start, until low cost, GREEN Electricity, is available" - ECONO WASH CYCLES.

I suspect the success rate, of a small red/green LED, showing the best times (Green electricity, off-peak, etc), to switch on, would only be successful, perhaps 10% or 20% of the time.
But, it would probably be close to that way, without all the smarty pants mains sockets and stuff, through sheer timing luck, anyway.
I.e. Sometimes people would switch something on during peak-time, and others off-peak, just through sheer coincidences.

So the actual possible savings, could be rather minute, at best. Unless it is an extremely green/eco orientated person/family.
paulca:
The only point made here that confused me, is around avoiding using energy during peak times.

Why?

I mean, yes, that helps your pocket if your supplier offers you the discount to use power "out of hours".

But that says nothing about the environmental aspects of the generation, it's purely economical.  Power stations have one purpose.  If they are not generating power they are losing money.  So, it makes sense for them to run all night long offering a discount to temp people to use it.  Rather than shut down a few or all turbines overnight. 

Whether they generate it a tea time or at 3am, it's still generated the same way.   Actually peak time in summer is far, far more likely to be high solar output times.

Moving your heavier loads to the wee hours probably ends up costing more environmentally in the long run.
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