General > General Technical Chat
Watt the fμck?
cortex_m0:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 29, 2022, 07:18:07 pm ---On a more serious tone though, one thing that defies logic is that from what I know, the UK is almost self-sufficient energy-wise - at least for electricity and gas. They do not get any gas from Russia AFAIK, whatsoever. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.
--- End quote ---
According to a 2016 report from the UK government, almost 40% of UK energy (a category including crude oil, coal, gas, and electricity) is imported.
29% of energy imports are of natural gas, primarily from Norway and Netherlands.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/ukenergyhowmuchwhattypeandwherefrom/2016-08-15
France is a notable source of electricity in the UK. There are multiple grid connections between the UK and the continent, at least one of which runs alongside the Channel Tunnel:
https://www.nationalgrid.com/uks-second-electricity-link-france-starts-flowing-full-capacity
mikerj:
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on October 01, 2022, 07:40:59 am ---AGM and Gel are two names for the same thing. They use a gel electrolyte absorbed into a glass-fibre mat to keep it in contact with the lead electrodes. This means you can use them in any orientation, unlike a traditional lead-acid wet cell.
--- End quote ---
This isn't true, they both sealed and valve regulated designs but they are constructed differently. The electrolyte in an AGM battery remains liquid, but is suspended in the glass mat. A gel battery uses silica to form a fairly thick colloidal gel. Gel batteries are the ones very often used in UPS and security alarms, they cope with deeper discharge better than other lead-acid designs but are more sensitive to being overcharged (the gel dries up and battery impedance rises dramatically, the usual cause of death). Gel batteries tend not to be use for high current applications like starter batteries, AGM is superior for this.
rstofer:
--- Quote from: paulca on September 30, 2022, 08:54:02 am ---It's correct the UK don't import gas, oddly, Ireland is a net exporter of natural gas.
So it does bear a question.... why can't the UK and Ireland take it's gas off the international market and sell it to us for sensible "localised" prices.
--- End quote ---
A couple of reasons: Who owns the gas? Is it private enterprise or is it some subsidiary of the government? If it is owned by private enterprise (likely), then world market rules apply. He who pays the most, gets the most. Worldwide market!
Nationalizing energy for reduced costs isn't going to work either. There is nothing a government agency can do that can't be done faster, better and cheaper when 'profit' is involved. Employees of government agencies aren't interested in 'profit', they are interested in pension benefits upon retirement. Customer service is right out the window.
Then there are the 'take or pay' contracts that are intended to smooth prices. A utility signs up to take so much raw resources over some period of time for a certain price. If they exceed the amount, they pay going rate for the extra. If they underuse the amount, they pay anyway. Those sound like workable strategies as long as supply is relatively stable and consumers don't do something irrational like conserve. It can be counterproductive to conserve if it leaves the utility buying resources it can't sell and losing money on a daily basis. Of course they are going to raise prices. They can do this because consumer agreements are not 'take or pay'. They're more like 'pay what we bill'.
Want to regulate the price? Good luck! Maintenance will go down, continuity of service will go down but profits will stay the same or climb. Just get the .gov involved if you want to see how a market actually works. There is no sense of nationalism when profits are involved.
tom66:
Removing ~35% of all gas from the European market (Russia is now supplying <20% of what it was pre-war) will of course have an effect on the gas price. I don't see any conspiracy here.
paulca:
I have been on this campaign for nearly a month now.
So by setting my mains power graph to 1 week and moving it week by week from the start of Sept, taking the average power (in W) over that week.
It's gone from 496W average to 346W average. About £40 a month.
The fish tank is going to a good home tonight. I'm done with it. It turns out it IS a 150W heater, it's not broken, but the tank is using that heater for 20 minutes every hour and it's not even cold indoors yet! I'm bored of it long ago anyway.
On "educating others". When you start talking Watt hours and Kilowatt hours, people lose interest and stop listening.
So, without making the conversion between power and energy units a thing, just bypass it entirely and don't mention the units. Stick with Watts. Just multiple it by roughly how many hours a day the thing gets used to get a "Cost factor" - call it a unitless value (even though it's watt hours / day).
Examples:
Oven - 3kW - 15 minutes per day (30 minute bake) = 750
Electric shower - 11kW - 10 minutes per day = ~1900
Gaming PC 100W - 16 hours a day = 1600
Smart hub - 1W - 24hours = 24
Smart temp sensor - 0.1W 24 hours = 2.4
Idle Hue RGB Bulb - 2W 24 hours = 48
It should be fairly easy for most people to go through most items in their house, put an estimated power value on it, estimate how many hours a day, "Score" the items, sort them and do something small and simple to reduce each of the big ones. Maximum impact, minimum effort. and NO TEMPORAL UNIT CONVERSIONS. (You and I know we can extract watt hours, divide and multiple to get kWh and £ / $. They don't need to know.
That and on everybody this winter needs at least a house wide power meter!
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