Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?

What kind of bulb do you have in your oven?

Tim

If I pick up a few free bulbs, I don't think my electric bill will go up. Statistically, it probably goes down.

CFLs fail when the electrolytic caps blow up, usually from turn-on surge. Sometimes the tube fails.

Elections.

There are probably thousands of CFL's in their original boxes stored in cupboards in houses in the UK that have NEVER been used!

Not sure what that means. All power sources can be adjusted over weeks and months, but this is probably Larkin's way of leaving the door open to bash renewable power.

It is the daily cycle that costs so much money to mitigate. Some energy sources like nuclear, can't be easily adjusted over the course of a day. Coal is hard to adjust in less than a few hours. Gas can do better, but there are different types of gas generation and have different response times.

That's often all that is needed to smooth out the power fluctuations. The battery facilities are capable of powering the grid for minutes or hours, not days, yet they do a LOT to help stabilize the grid where they are used. And that's with a portion of the capacity being used for arbitrage.

Maybe I should check my sources, but I thought UK peak usage was 50 to 60 GW. So you are talking about backing up the entire UK power generation capacity?

Yeah, it will eventually come to that, but not soon. As costs drop, this will become more feasible.

Gas hob Combined microwave/oven

The company I worked for at the time was a distributor for Trabon automatic lubrication systems. I didn't have much to do with that part of the business but tagged along with the crew doing the installation one day.

It was impressive. There were many workstations throughout the cavern each equipped with every Rigid pipe tool known to man, all virginal. That was '71. I wonder what it looks lie today?

All you need is a river and a handy mountain.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in hand held pad, goodbye.

False, if one has an electric car. The 'useless when' formula is weak; every roll of toilet paper is useless beside the toilet... until the time is right, you don't use it.

But, it's good to have it.

I'm in a power co-op that sent out CFLs and the LEDs. The mail person really loved the pile of boxes suddenly appearing to be delivered.

The co-op also pays out a dividend. It isn't much, usually around $50, but it's refreshing getting money back. It is associated with the Bonneville Power Authority so we weren't hit with massive rate increases after the deregulation fiasco.

Historically it goes back to Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Act of

1936. The utility companies didn't want to get involved so the farmers and ranchers formed co-ops.

I'm waiting for the Rural Fiber Cable Act but I don't think that's going to happen.

Never heard or that long. Been once a month here for over 70 years that I know of. 30 seconds? Really? So five minutes for 10 houses. Try it and get back to us.

Yeah, I have two dozen. Bet there are millions in the UK.

Once upon a time, a water meter at my house was read manually. I think these guys run past the tiny display and copy it down as they fly through the neighborhood. One reading was not considered carefully and was off by one in the largest digit, or maybe parallax prevented him from seeing the largest digit. It was like an old style odometer mechanism, but set further back from the cutout in the tiny outdoor unit.

So I get a bill for something like a thousand dollars. When I tried to dispute it, they said I must have a water leak! lol It must be one hell of a water leak. I did the math and pointed out it would be a gallon every 15 seconds. I don't think I can fill a gallon jug in 15 seconds from any of my taps. I had to call back a second time and insist they address the issue. The read the meter again and got it right. My bill was more like $50. Maybe that was quarterly...

alan_m snipped-for-privacy@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote

Our meter boxes are all on an outside wall of the house.

Same here, peak and off peak meter.

Same here.

They never say anything to the house occupant here unless there is what looks like a dog that might bite them in the backyard. Since I have 3 massive great 8'x8' patio doors between where I sit and where he walks from the back gate to the meter box half way up the 100' long N wall, I normall can hear him open the 4'x4' metal door with a horizontal hinge on the top edge and might get a wave as he leaves when he can see me looking at him leaving.

I've never had an indoor electric or gas meter. Water meters are indoors to prevent freezing, but now they have a transmitter (or something) wired from the indoor meter to the outside of the house. Unless they've become even fancier, a truck drives down the street and reads the signal from each water meter.

When I lived in Philadelphia, indoor meters were the norm. There was a time that mom was home so not a big deal. They would also leave a card with the meter dials printed and you filled out the position and mailed it.

There are a lot of stores from meter readers too. Some houses had coal stoves and people burned all sort of stuff, such as every other step going to the basement. They also got to know the exhibitionists on the route too.

My electric meter here is read daily. I can go on line or my phone and see current charges and projected bill at any time.

We don't have meters here. I'm 3 miles from a nuclear plant and that power is too cheap to meter!

I don't know what the technical issue is, but here in Australia, it's not especially unusual for the spot electricity price to go negative at night when coal plants don't want to reduce their output. If they had another solution that didn't involve spending money, I'm sure they'd use it.

Sylvia.