29 Feb Power To The Thermal Store
Power usage can seem complicated. In fact it is. I know it took me quite a while to get my head around everything and I am still learning.Here is a water heating explanation from today for Janne, done on kitchen post-it notes.It was prompted by the imminent switch to the Octopus Agile tariff and the related purchase and installation of a second smart switch (this time one that talks to IFTTT and Alexa) for the thermal store.Full automation to switch the bottom immersion on automatically when prices plunge is the intention.The Agile tariff…Octopus say it is the world’s first and is still in beta…is quite exciting really. Their intention in creating it is to try to get households to consume energy outside of peak time (16.00 to 20.00) by offering it at very low rates that change every half hour depending on grid demand and the amount of energy available to the grid.Theory has it that at 2am on a windy night the price will plunge. This was borne out last night as it got down to 0.72p per kWh and hovered around 1.60p per kWh for about four hours. For comparison most people pay 12p to 14p flat rate per kWh currently and gas is about 4p per kWH. So this is electricity that is cheaper than gas and far far cleaner. On a non windy night the Agile tariff price hovers around 5p per kWh.So a couple of hours of topping our battery up and heating the thermal store should keep the grid energy bills down considerably. We know if we fill the battery overnight that it will last through the day and right through the premium peak period from 16.00 to 20.00. This house is like a constant evolving experiment.
As stated elsewhere we are always trying to make our house project more sustainable. Hence the offer to help others with our research skills, experience and information from the planning and build.
In that spirit if you have read this post and think you want to switch to Octopus Energy like we have do please use our referral link. It will get us both £50 credit on our bills.
https://share.octopus.energy/light-may-835
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