Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?

Only if the power company haven't overestimated the usage for when they take the monthly DD.

From the defunct Bulb Energy FAQ

Morrison Data Services carry out meter readings for us.

Meter readers are required to visit everyone's property at least once every 2 years to make sure everything's safe and ticking over properly.

He's a yank. So is Bowman and Cindy.

The difference is that the meter reader goes down the street reading meters. Meter installers don't.

But do you think they drive back to the shop for each meter? The truck is full of meters and they go from one house to the other fitting them. Here in the US, the meters fit into a base. There's no wiring to the meter. It's not much different from plugging in a big lamp bulb. I'd expect it to be 15 minutes only if that includes the paperwork and the driving.

Why not???

When my parents got married, my father bought a stoker, a hopper with a worm gear, so that my mother (well, I didn't exist so they weren't parents yet.) so my mother wouldnt' have to shovel coal all day long. He'd fill it up in the morning. But he was 53 and it didn't take long before he didn't like filling up the stoker and they put in a gas furnace.

That's good.

The USA.

At the start of the day they load 35 meters into his truck, and give him a list of houses close together, maybe right next to each other. They plan to do all the houses asap so going one by one down the street is the simplest way. (If they only do some, then the meter reader still has to go there for the few houses that are left, and that itself is inefficient.)

It take a minute to cut the lead-sealed metal strip that holds on the old meter, a minute to take off the 10" metal ring that holds the meter to the base, a minute to pull the meter (10 seconds, really), 2 minutes to take a new meter out of its box, remove the plastic covers to the 3 big tabs, and insert the meter into the base, a minute to replace the ring, and a minute to attach a new lead band. That's 7 minutes.

Then a minute to enter the meter number (of the new meter) and the new lead band number into the log, a minute to put the old meter into the box the new meter came in, and 4 minutes to pick up the old meter and walk back to the truck. That's 13 minutes.

Now, to get to the next address -- maybe it's next door -- and take another meter from the back of the truck.

My estimate is realistic. I started with an hour until I remembered how simple it is, that it's not necessary to cut the power to the house and no wiring is required. It unplugs and plugs back in. I myself have pulled a meter, removed the plastic covers from the tabs, and replaced it. Took literally two minutes.

Pumped hydro requires two quite big lakes at quite close together with a significant difference in height.Not all countries have such conditions.

Some back of the envelope calculations:

Assuming 100 m height difference and 1000 m3/s through turbines(pumps. The electric power is about 1 GW so it can deliver the power of only

If the water level is allowed to vary by 10 m, at 1000 m3/s stream a 1 km2 surface lake only lasts for 10000 seconds or 3 hours. Usable to handle day peaks. To ride through a week long calm period, each lake should have a 56 km2 surface area. This handles just the missed production of 330 windmills !!

The utility size batteries seems to be packed into sea containers storing about 30 MWh. This will store the production of a _single_3 MW wind turbine for 10 hours. Install a battery container at the base of each turbine and the system can handle half a day missing wind production. To handle a week of missing wind production, several containers would be needed at every wind turbine. Not very cost effective !!

Use diesels or gas turbines to back up the missing wind production during calm days.

Different thing.

Not untypical for a thinking person's group. Even if an idea is wacky, people kick it around, and see what comes out of it. Sometimes one learns something new.

Sylvia.

søndag den 19. marts 2023 kl. 00.19.28 UTC+1 skrev snipped-for-privacy@downunder.com:

you can build one ;)

Though of course, the end user never sees a cent of this.

Sylvia.

My electric smart meter was installed with new tails and an isolation switch. On the same visit a smart gas meter was installed with the necessary purging and gas pressure/leak safety checks and the additional checks to ensure all gas appliances were working satisfactory afterwards.

In the UK it does not plug in and in my case the suppliers fuse was pulled to cut the supply.

I have friends who burn wood because it can be cheaper. I can't think why anyone would want to do all that work. Filling a hopper seems trivial in comparison. But I don't want to do that either.

That's not true in the US. Many utility companies will bill you at different rates at night and day. I was on that for a while, but it was a bit of a PITA as to make it not cost more than the straight plan, I had to cut off my heat or A/C during peak times. I have settings in my thermostat, but I needed another couple of time points because I wanted to ramp up the temperature before cutting off the heat and likewise down the temperature before turning off the A/C.

In the summer, it is one period, from 3 pm to 7 pm. The temperature will definitely rise in four hours.

I know of a utility in PA, where they control your electric for heating. It's straight electric, but they have what looks vaguely like a radiator, full of bricks. This gets heated off peak, and keeps the place warm through the peak time. They get a break on the price of the electric.

That's the spot price, not the retail price.

Nothing like that here, but its almost as easy to change the physical meter.

We have two, one each for peak and off peak electricity.

here you can get a plan where your price is set every hour by the current price of electricity,

In the UK there is a mix, around my way outside for most newer properties or often when houses have been converted to flats. Along my road most houses have their electricity and gas meter inside the house with no external meter box.

Smart meters are not compulsory and many people have refused the offer to have them fitted. There has been quite a lot of adverse publicity recently surrounding smart meters. With energy prices doubling many hundreds of thousands are struggling paying for their energy. The energy companies have been programming smart meters to become pre-payment meters overnight for these people. This is not just more inconvenient but a more expensive way of pay for energy - although the price difference compared to us who pay by direct debit will end in July this year.

There is also a mix of metered and un-metered water. In general, new builds require a water meter but for older properties the owner can request one which remains in place for subsequent owners. Again generalising, if the number of people occupying the property is less than the number of bedrooms in the property there is likely to be a large saving in water and sewage charges based on the meter reading so for many there is an incentive to request a water meter.

Steam ships with triple expansion engines got pretty efficient before they were phased out.

Sylvia.