Author Topic: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...  (Read 7222 times)

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DamonHD

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Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« on: March 11, 2017, 01:22:40 PM »
I'm working on a note about tweaking the controls on rechargeable devices such as laptops to be kinder to the grid, and to off-grid systems:

http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html

Rgds

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2017, 01:33:45 PM »
Any idea how much energy storage the cumulative population of rechargeable devices (in the UK, in your case) represents?
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DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2017, 02:26:03 PM »
I'm working on the assumption of at least 1 million laptops plugged in to AC mains at times when they could make a difference, with (say) 10Wh capacity each out of a full 50Wh battery (so 20%, eg not charging beyond 80% full when the grid is stressed) for 10MWh of virtual storage.

Rgds

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joestue

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2017, 05:24:24 PM »
Quote
In the UK (for the GB grid) at least one million laptops plugged in to AC mains at times when they could make a difference, with (say) 10Wh deferrable charging/capacity each out of a 50Wh battery (so 20%, eg not charging beyond 80% full when the grid is stressed) for 10MWh of aggregate virtual storage.

interesting. might actually increase the battery's lifespan too.
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george65

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2017, 12:06:53 AM »
I'm working on the assumption of at least 1 million laptops plugged in to AC mains at times when they could make a difference, with (say) 10Wh capacity each out of a full 50Wh battery (so 20%, eg not charging beyond 80% full when the grid is stressed) for 10MWh of virtual storage.

Rgds

Damon

What do you substantiate that 1M laptops on?

As a percentage of the total power use in these peak periods, what as a percentage do you estimate this to save the grid in power? consumption during these periods?

What sort of a change would this system make to the air quality of the world if everyone  in the UK or the world for that matter instituted this? Would we see a 1% real world improvement over all or a 10,000th of 1% or would it be measurable and definable at all?

I'm no mathematician especially at the lofty numbers Involved but from what I found, the UK grid demand seems to fluctuate between 25 and 40 Gw per day.  A saving of 10 Mwh would represent by my calculations to be about 1/4000th of the the peak demand in 1 hour let alone the other 23 of the day. 
Also added into the equation the amount of of Co2 emitting generation being in the vicinity of 50%, the actual saving in emissions appears to be even more infinitesimal.


Have you thought of promoting other means of power reduction like turning the lights and AC off in Office Blocks and shopping centers after knock off or closing time rather than leaving them go 24/7 as so many door  turning off display lighting on buildings that is needless and represents considerable load on the system?
 How about a program/ device that prevents EV's from charging until demand is at it's lowest?

I'm sure your numbers will be different to mine but I cannot see them being so different for this to make once iota of difference to anything in reality.  That said, I look forward to seeing your calculations on the significance of the idea and what it's real world impact might be.

DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2017, 04:45:00 AM »
I spend most of my life trying to find practical ways to cut energy consumption or shift it.

I don't think that this is a huge one, though MWh of storage is still big by grid standards.

This one has the advantage of being essentially free, and adding to the store of demand response.

This one is as much about being able to save on infrastructure costs as on carbon emissions.

Rgds

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george65

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2017, 07:35:13 AM »

I do admire your motivations and concerns for the planet.
Not aiming at you specifically although you do fit what I am talking about in I don't get why people always aim at the individual and the minor concerns and do not address areas where there is a hell of a lot more fat to trim so to speak.

As I suggested, what about looking at wasted energy like lights and AC still running in unoccupied floors if not entire buildings?
 A couple of Buildings would save much more power than worrying about Laptops.  There are  computers running in these buildings  that are chewing power and lord knows how many other processes in industry that are left running when there is now need.

Going after the big fish would be much easier and do far more for the goals of the green movements than always worrying about the things that even if you do multiply the effect by a Million it still adds up to squat in the bigger picture.

My favourite Ignorance of the enviromentally concerned is Product Dumping. I have seen with my own eyes how much waste there is by business, industry and Governments in these areas.
Perfectly good products are dumped, here almost certainly in landfill ( Because the company's want to ensure the products are never used) for no other reason than they are superseded. Nothing to do with being unsafe or out of date ( other than in appearance) or anything else, just purely for financial reasons.

I was present at a waste transfer station when a coutainer load of brand new mens shorts were dumped to go to landfil.
The reason? The swing tag had the wrong bar code on it. Nothing wrong with the garments, The effing swing tag was wrong.
There was more than one container but why in the hell the company could not pay some Kids minimal wage to  replace those tags and sell the clothing or for that matter send it to some 3rd world hole where a new pair of britches may make a difference to someone is just plain criminal. You stuffed up, you deal with it RESPONSIBLY and don't give me crap about it forcing the cost of goods up.
It forces your greed driven profits down but suck it up princess, cost of doing business and having some real responsibility.

Why the hell do I NEVER hear a thing about this kind of despicable resource squandering? I cannot think of a worse kind of waste.  I have seen a Full semi trailer load of Mobile Phones dumped and Buried. How much energy went into their manufacture? How much emissions were created and more over, How much waste, hazzardous and otherwise went into the manufacture of their batteries alone?It's disgusting and why the green motivated have not screamed their tits off for this to be banned world wide just mystifys me at the same time undermining the non existent credibility they have in my mind for reasons just like this.
But, I NEVER hear one single thing from the green concerned about stopping this disgusting waste.

I have said over and over that this whole green save the planet thing is nothing but a profit spinner for big biz and governments and this is basically proof of that.

The greens as a political party in Oz are now seen as a complete and utter joke for their ban everything type policy's.
If they came out and said " We want to outlaw product Dumping except for safety reasons" who in the hell is going to not think that was a fair and reasonable idea and support it?   Just lobby for laws to be passed that say if you make it, you must sell or give it away to be put to the use for which it was made in the first place. 
This would not cost anyone anything, not be inconvenient, put people out of work, affect peoples life style or anything else BUT, it WOULD do the planet and future generation a hell of a lot of good and would make a real and tangible difference.
Instead they come up with more half baked ideas that put things on the individual when there are easy, logical and common sense things that could be done like that.

One can claim every bit helps with minor savings and initiatives just as one can claim that pissing on a bush fire helps put it out. The fact is though that one water drop from a chopper is actually going to do far more good than if you could miracle a Million people to piss on it.
I would guarantee that one truckload of perfectly good  products that are dumped would save more resources and emissions that your laptop idea or having CFC lightbulbs or many other things that are made so much of.
Multiply ALL the products dumped in just my city in one day and you are going to be years catching up with these  insignificant induced personal guilt trips that the green concerned are ALWAYS going on about.

I really just don't get it.  There are so many areas where HUGE savings could be made for the benifit of the planet yet those that espouse their concern are always carrying on about insignificant, inconvenient and impractical ideas where the Big fish are ignored wile they worry about the tiny minnows.
No one is against having a clean, unpolluted planet but FFS, those that concern themselves and are motivated to do something about it need to do something  significant and actually helpful than flapping their jaws and spending their time orrying about things that will never add up to Boo when there is so many other things that would be easier to to deal with and have real and actual benifits.

But I'm not a politician.

/rant.

DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2017, 07:42:03 AM »

I do admire your motivations and concerns for the planet.
Not aiming at you specifically although you do fit what I am talking about in I don't get why people always aim at the individual and the minor concerns and do not address areas where there is a hell of a lot more fat to trim so to speak.

As I suggested, what about looking at wasted energy like lights and AC still running in unoccupied floors if not entire buildings?
 A couple of Buildings would save much more power than worrying about Laptops.  There are  computers running in these buildings  that are chewing power and lord knows how many other processes in industry that are left running when there is now need.

I am.

My main business is aiming to fix home heating to save several billion pounds per year in the UK alone, and with it several percent of the country's entire carbon footprint, and in a way that has a 1-year financial payback for most participants.  And is extensible to the rest of Europe.

But the superficially little things are worth thinking about, and maybe doing too, if they add to the whole.  I'm writing this one up in public because I have to focus on the day job during the week and likely won't have time to follow through myself.  But maybe Mr Cook can "make it so" if he wishes.

Rgds

Damon

PS. When you say that no one talks about dealing with the other huge problems, I would sugest that they do.  If you gritted your teeth for a week and (say) followed my @EarthOrgUK Twitter account, or read TreeHugger.com, while there is some air-headedness around, there are also serious efforts to tackle known and emerging issues by sensible people.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 12:14:32 PM by DamonHD »
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Bruce S

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2017, 09:48:11 AM »
george65 ; I'm no politician either  ;D. BUT
 since you have seen this stuff happening . Have you done anything to try bring this to light? I for one would be raising cane if I saw all those cell phone and batteries being dumped! OR was it long enough ago that there's no way to bring it back up now?


DamonHD;
I'm curious about the programs that would lessen to charging of the laptop tops. Most of the people I've helped out, know NOT to plug the charger in until the laptop is lower than 75% in charge and to plug them from the wall , not just the laptop.
There are some nice Linux distros out there that allow people to really tweak the usage.
Windows 7 has some good tweaks as well, BUT they are no where near as publicized as Linux ones are.
 
 
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Bruce S

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2017, 10:04:39 AM »
All
What George65 and I do is hopefully not being construed as bickering!! If we had the chance to pour a pint or two , we would probably be good drinking buds.
Unfortunately we are 1000s of miles apart and flat words cannot convey whether a person is peeved or joking.
George65 is just as passionate about stuff as we are.
SIR: If I'm wrong or off the mark merely say so.

DAMONHD , Apologies about hijacking this thread!
 
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DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2017, 11:42:07 AM »
No apology required Bruce; I posted the thing to provoke some thinking.

Of course I'm waiting for Tim Cook's call.   B^>

Rgds

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george65

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #11 on: March 14, 2017, 10:22:43 AM »
george65 ; I'm no politician either  ;D. BUT
 since you have seen this stuff happening . Have you done anything to try bring this to light? I for one would be raising cane if I saw all those cell phone and batteries being dumped! OR was it long enough ago that there's no way to bring it back up now?

It was about 2 years ago now and I was certainly not supposed to see it and the fact I did could have well cost my brother in laws Job. He was manager at a waste facility and this was known as a "secure" dump they pay a lot for.  Basicaly it means that not only do they get to dump the products, the facility they dump them at also destroys them in front of the company reps there to make sure they do.  They are usually also put into deep pits and filled over.  In this case a semi  pulled up ( a curtain side) and all the phones were on pallets. They were carefully removed with the help of an excavator and some of the hired Einstein  facility workers.  The semi pulled away and one of those mammoth Dozers with the 10ft high spiked wheels ran everything over repeatedly scraping the pile up every so many passes  and going over it again for good measure. This went on for almost half an hour till clearly nothing was left of anything.

After that, it was all pushed into a 20Ft deep hole and rammed with the excavator before being covered up and rammed down some more.  Nothing to be recovered even if you could as it's all probably 100Ft under the surface now with the buildup of the layers of garbage... and other perfectly good dumped products.

As it turned out, a good friend was a manager of the company that Dumped all these, Vodaphone.  Normally she would be one of the observers of these dumpings but was on Holidays at the time.  When I told her about it she was blase having been to a multitude of them over her time with the company.  She thought it was disgusting as well just from the POV of how the board was always pushing for more profits but would write off hundreds of thousands worth of stock like this every year.

Another friend was a higher up in a shoe store chain and had seen the same thing.  The mentality was they would not give hem to charitys or homeless because that would lower the number of people that bought shoes from them if they got them for nothing.
Yeah, people with no where to sleep or whom eat at soup kitchens are always buying fancy new shoes to look fashionable and in season!   >:(

My brother in law oversaw multiple dumpings of this type every week and I saw others like the clothing dumps when I would go there to Pick up veg oil they took from cruise ships or to dump some of my own rubbish.  Often when things of " interest"  arrived, he would fein bing too busy to run over it with the dozer and tell them it would have to wait an hour at which point the company reps would leave and he and the guys there would pour over it and take what they wanted.  The phones and other things were different because the company dumping them was real adamant about them not ever getting into circulation and the company went with it because of the money they made from it. Other things were not as serious so could be scavenged. 

There was a lot of new and unused It equipment that got dumped too.  I got a HP server that had until a few months before, been selling for $34,000.  I put it in my event photography trailer. Kept the thing very warm in winter but played havoc on the power supply at some places. Damn thing weighed near 80Kg and took a full 5 min to booth up and sounded like an old 707 when it did with it's 19 large fans whirring away and 14 Hdd's spinning. We called it the Tumansky due to it's size and weight.
Made our View stations lightening fast though. :0)

Brother in law still has boxes of brand name wrist watches at home ( got a couple off him last weekend) clothing, tools, Tv wall mounting brackets... and a heap of other stuff besides all the furniture, appliances and other things he got and put in the house.
I still have 2x 2Kw  2x 4kw and 1x 5kw plus a 2KW solar inverter I have hooked up to panels  up the back I got from there that were dumped.  I gave one to a mate as a spare for his system and sold another 2 from the load I brought home that were about to be dozed.

The reason they were dumped? Old model. What was the difference between the old and the new model? The plastic front cover.
Everything else I discovered is the same. Same chassis, board, mounting, connections.... NOTHING other than the front cover was changed but instead of opening the box and changing the panel, a truck load of the units were dumped.
Apparently I'd missed out on a load of solar panels the week before and there was a stack of them I was told.

And all this came from ONE facility in ONE city.  Probably 30 places of its type here run by my BIL's ( former) company and the competition.  Then you can drive 60 miles north or south and find more.

The fact the Gubbermint makes me use garbage, dangerous, toxic light bulbs to supposedly save the environment but allows this complete and utter bull$#|+ to go on every day is why I have no respect whatsoever for all this save the planet crap.
Same as I can go buy some some 3+ ton SUV with no fuel economy to speak of that I never take out of the city but have all these other green initiatives rammed down my neck as if they make a difference.

It's crap, complete and utter crap.  Just banning this dumping in one state would do more for the environment than all the energy saving lightbulbs in the whole damn nation would.

But it's all about  the elites and governments making money and just putting the individual on a guilt trip as if it's their fault and they should be doing more.

I don't know how people are gullible enough to fall for and put up with it.

Mary B

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #12 on: March 14, 2017, 05:17:47 PM »
Here electronics have to go to a recycling center where metals are recovered, plastic is recycled...  the local one has a shredder they dump the new stuff in, it gets shredded,the plastic floated off with water, then the heavier stuff is hand sorted to recover the metals. One local electronics manufacturer lets me dumpster dive first and i have recovered some nice scrap aluminum sheet, aluminum project boxes that were new but scratched so they couldn't use them to pot components in, and some really nice heavy duty heatsinks. Friend in chearge of their recycling calls me and lets me know if there is some new stuff being tossed. Only thing I can't take are any electronic boards.

DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2017, 05:29:46 PM »
Looks like Apple sells about 20m laptops per year, so not unreasonable to assume 1m of them connected to mains in the UK at any one time.  A paper I found assumes a total of 20m total mains-connected laptops in the UK (eg at useful times for grid-support).

http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html

http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/~shild/results/report_sean.pdf

Rgds

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george65

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2017, 06:50:34 AM »
Looks like Apple sells about 20m laptops per year, so not unreasonable to assume 1m of them connected to mains in the UK at any one time. 

And if those Million laptops add up to 10Mwh, it's still a completely insignificant drop in the over all bucket that would have ZERO effect on anything.
Of course laptop batteries being what they are, you'd probably find half of them only hold half or less capacity so the viability of the idea would be further undermined.

Personally, I'd say you'd do a lot better to develop a low cost device that ran electric water heaters off solar power during the day than off peak at night.
Yes, I know they are out there already but they are overly expensive for what they are and limited in function.

There would be a LOT more power to be saved in hot water heating than in laptop charging.

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2017, 08:27:38 AM »
Please note that in storage it sometimes what you do with it rather than size that matters.

Rgds

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george65

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2017, 03:50:28 AM »
Please note that in storage it sometimes what you do with it rather than size that matters.

Damon


What a load of Crock!
You are smarter enough to know better than that.  Please don't try to embarrass yourself or insult my intelligence with silly rubbish like that.

Doing something insignificant is still something insignificant and therefore useless unless it has some real world benefit or achievement towards the goal  for which said endeavour is aimed.

I don't get the mentality of  people like yourself and I say that as a collective not a specific.
People are always going on about pissant ideas that will add up to zero and championing them as if they will save the world.  It's always about what the little guy should do rather than going after the MAJOR contributors to the problem.  It's always small time thinking rather than really making a difference where it counts.

I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is 98% BS but at least he talks on a global scale that will do something significant IF it comes to fruition.

I estimated this laptop idea would add up to 1/4000th of the power used in an hour in the UK. You didn't even try to correct that so I can only assume it must be close enough to the mark to your calculations too or you would have corrected my figures with more favorable ones.... unless I was wrong and OVER estimated. 
I asked what percentage of the overall power consumption you thought this idea would save and what percentage it would improve air quality and again now answer so I assume it to be what we both know, too infinitesimal to measure.  I think if we were talking about this as physics, we would be down to sub atomic level in the over all problem.

I'm not trying to put $#|+  on you per se, what I'm saying is why do smart people like yourself always seem to want to put your energies into ideas that even numbskulls like me can work out are going to do jack all of nothing for the cause which you say you are concerned with.
And don't give me some cop out excuse like it all counts or what you do it with rather than how well it works as you are effectively saying now.
That's Bull and we all know it.

It seems to me that there is some sort of fear with trying to do significant things. I suspect that is because you know the game is rigged and it is a sham and you won't get a Millimeter with it. As such, you ( you being collective thinking types)  come up with these useless ideas ( and they are useless in the grand scheme of things)  to make it LOOK like you are doing something.
I guess you fool some that want to be fooled, Much like someone on drugs telling people they don't hurt them or it's their last smoke, but in reality, most people whom are honest with themselves KNOW it's a load of eyewash.

If people like you are smart enough to come up with these ineffectual ideas, you are also smart enough to come up with something that will do something measurable for everyone's benefit.

Show me something that will improve air quality by .001%,  save .5% on power generation in a country and could be repeated in other places, Show me SOMETHING that WILL make a definable  difference and I'll be all over it.  We have enough feel good insignificance, We need things with measurable and definable results to the problem.

All these ideals and impractical solution's that add up to nothing just undermine support for the whole cause. 

DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #17 on: March 26, 2017, 04:01:39 AM »
Please be civil.

I got no further than your opening sentence or so.

If you go and look at the balancing services of any significant grid system operator you will see that they buy in a portfolio of services, typically smaller amounts with smaller response times and vice versa.  I could check for sure, but I think that the fastest response storage pool on the GB grid right now isn't much more than 10MWh; it's probably a lot less, just for example.  I helped a generator price up 1MWh for just such a role not so long ago.  It is possible that I may know what I'm talking about and you don't.

That is simply factual.

If you cannot avoid spewing hateful words rather than disagree politely then I shall shut down your account.  In any case you're going in the read-only pen until you can be civil and separate facts from nastiness.

You may also be right, but you just don't have to mix in all that invective.

Please.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2017, 04:08:57 AM by DamonHD »
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DamonHD

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #18 on: March 26, 2017, 04:42:09 AM »
Footnote: (which may partially vindicate George's complaints about scale):

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/Enhanced-Frequency-Response.aspx

Quote


Enhanced frequency response is defined by National Grid Electricity Transmission as being a service that achieves 100% active power output at 1 second (or less) of registering a frequency deviation.  This is in contrast with existing frequency response services of Primary and High which have timescales of 10 seconds, and Secondary which has timescales of 30 seconds.  This is a new service that is being developed to improve management of the system frequency pre-fault, i.e. to maintain the system frequency closer to 50Hz under normal operation.

National Grid has procured 200MW of enhanced frequency response through the tendering exercise held in July 2016.  Results were published on 26th August and the list of tenders submitted can be found on the link on this page.

My emphasis above, cf the 30MW averted load I refer to.  I haven't dug out the energy capacity yet. 
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Mary B

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #19 on: March 26, 2017, 05:42:19 PM »
Utilities here use capacitor/battery banks to provide for peak surges, I could see the laptop batteries filling the same need as they would be distributed all over the grid and could fill a peak need without upgrading utility hardware. Is it a huge CO2 saver? Nope, won't make enough difference to matter. But it could save people money on utility bills! It all does add up too! I am not into the green thing, I do not think man made CO2 is an issue, but if the grid can be made more stable cheaply why not do it?

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Re: Flattening the Duck but not your off-grid storage...
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2017, 04:49:10 AM »
Indeed, I don't think that this is a significant CO2 saver, except by the back door by helping let more wind and solar in.

And yes, it should reduce costs all round.  I just happen to be reading this in another tab:

http://eciu.net/blog/2017/p272-worth-half-an-hour-of-your-time

where demand shifting of non-time-sensitive loads may save a typical UK business ~£600/year; little pain, significant gain!

Rgds

Damon
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