Over the years since privatisation spare capacity in the network to cover possible peak demand has reduced significantly.

Private sector do not want to invest in capacity that is mostly never used. When in the public sector the government could focus on power delivery needs not a P&L account.

For larger business and industrial users a significant part of the charge paid was related to their level of peak demand during the winter months.

An organisation I worked for had back up generating capacity to guarantee service resilience. They would try to anticipate peak demand periods (eg: November, dark, cold, 6.00pm) and switch on the generators so that their peak demand was minimised.

So I am not surprised that the energy companies are looking to find ways to shed load although I suspect this would apply to higher level industrial and commercial users and not general public.

In the town where I live there have been a few occasions when all the garages are out of diesel.

And during the fuel protests some years back it was almost impossible to get petrol or diesel for several days.

Electric cars are mostly charged overnight, when there's a surplus of electicity generation. This will continue to be the case with the growth of renewables, since the wind blows just as much as night as during the day. It's a different story with solar, of course, unless you take home batteries into account.

The wind is a highly variable source of energy and cannot be relied upon to pick up the slack. In winter, when electricity demand is already at its highest, useable solar energy is also at its lowest and wind power also reduces.

The other problem is that wind turbines do not like high wind levels and have to be stopped, which affects them in autumn and spring when wind energy is plentiful.

Imagine then there being 50x the EVs requiring overnight charging to now, with hardly any fossil fuel or nuclear power plants online to make sure demand overnight is satisfied when there's too little or too much wind.

Add to that the law that comes in soon that no newbuild properties (presumably homes - much worse if it includes commercial buildings as well) will be allowed to install gas boilers and will have to use ground or (most likely) air source heat pumps. Where's all the extra electricity to serve them coming from, especially in the evenings?

We've already discussed on other threads the scarcity of battery materials, and that's when EVs only account for 1-2% of all vehicles on the road in western countries.

We need to look at the bigger picture here.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/electric-cars/353209/energy-firms-want-right-switch-electric-cars-charging-home

That link doesn't bear out the OP's assertion that the powers sought are contrary to the aim of moving to electric cars. I suspect another example of the phenomenon I've commented on before where, like grief or major change at work, people are at an early stage (denial) in the process of working through that change.

My read of it is that Smart Meter technology in its next iteration might have the capacity the control individual household circuits where those supply high demand devices. The operators of the National Grid and the generation companies would like the authority to use that facility where they need to shed load to prevent the grid from failing. This would be an emergency measure to prevent widespread cut offs as happened last year when two generators failed at same time. Electric cars are quoted as an example of high demand devices along with electric central heating.

If your car is on charge and it drops out for an hour in the evening peak it'll still be fully charged tomorrow morning.

Shed-loading is rather a blunt instrument, given that it cannot tell between the person using their hob/oven to cook food, boil a kettle, use a hairdrier or charge their EV.

I can't see how any meter would be able to differentiate - only the max load, which surely depends on the number of occupants and what they are doing than how crutial the specific devices that use electricity are. What happens if someone on home medical care has equipment that takes them 'over the top' of their allowance?

The terrible effects of shed-loading or similar power cuts are shown by the current situation in California, which has no excuse given they've known of their problems for decades.

My sources say that 'smart' (they aren't) meters are being advocated mainly so that variable charging can be implemented at peak times (via the back door) and so that non-payers can be disconnected without the need for a call-out.

Smart meters are a waste of time - all you need to do is know which devices at home or in your workplace use the most power: it's hardly difficult - you either read the manual, check online or make reasonable judgements based on the type of equipment, e.g.

Oven, fridge/freezer, elec hob, incandecent lights, air conditioning and larger forced air ventilation systems, commercial pumps, items with large motors, computer server systems (including cooling for them), photocopiers, electric heating, devices with significant heating elements, etc, etc, in addition to charging and EV.

Look at the kW (or multiply the Amps by 230V) rating and multiply that by the hours normally working per day then the kWh elec rate.

Or connect a meter to each device and measure each as they are used.

The main way we can save on electricity (especially if we can't afford to buy new products all the time) is to not leave lights on when we aren't in a room for a reasonable time (more than 30 sec to 2 mins), don't leave items on standby if not needed for operation and switch items off if you can when finished. Most people already have switched to low energy lightbulbs.

It's also pointless buying a low-powered device if it doesn't meet the needs of the owner or the high replacemnt cost means you don't save money over its life - better to replace it when it cannot be repaired or doesn't work well any more. The same goes for gas boilers.

Far better (and more cost-effective) to improve your home or office building's thermal efficiency and/or fit solar thermal or PV panels to generate hot water or electricity for the grid yourself.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 19/09/2020 at 13:37

I was in Porto Santo a few years ago (second visit, first about 10 years ago) and in a few years all cars will be electric only, all electric generated locally and fed back to the grid if required.

However the island is only about 7 miles x 3 miles (the airport runway is almost the full width of the island, longer than Madeira) and if you rent a car you can travel on every road in half a day!

Why don't you do something about it rather than moaning about it?

I am dear, i'm part of the resistance in my own way (which i won't discuss here with the likes of you) ,its those who believe religiously all they are told by a bought and paid for mainstream media, doing the bidding of Lord knows whom, following the narrative as enthusiastically as only zealots can and willing ever more freedoms to be taken from them that are the problem.

No i won't be having a smart meter, and no i won't be doing as i'm told (buy Diesel they were told yesterday and here's the cheap VED to tempt you along) spending a years salary on an electric car, fuel taxes for which will rise massively once there's enough ICE cars scrapped and the fuel tax take plummets....thats where your smart meter comes in by the way, charging your car up will have the appropriate tax added, did anyone seriously think the cheap as chips to drive electric car bonanza would last?

Edited by gordonbennet on 19/09/2020 at 22:15

Factories hospitals govt buildings etc are priority energy users, this is the obvious scenario when the woefully inadequate generating network isn't able to cope as the time for the allegedly green transport switchover approaches.

In the absence of a major failure the generating network is not inadequate - at least not until millions of EV users expect to be able to draw on it heavily and simultaneously. A government which wants drivers to convert to EV must allow for that in their plans. That could be done by insisting on recharging overnight, but that won't satisfy drivers used to taking 5 minutes at a filling station.

After Covid is sorted - probably 2023 - no-one with an IQ>100 is likely to trust anything a Government says about the future.