smart meter

[rtbcomp]

You could use wind driven pump, would work out cheaper and works at night.

 

[HughF]

Don't go for distributed DC round the house. We did that for years, what a right pain. 130v max Pv voltage, 48v DC system, 3kw inverter now. Much better. Haven't run the generator (apart from for my phase converter) since February.

 

[Maker]

Was wondering about a 4 wire system with 5v 12v 24v, as lots of 5v usb then drop the 12 to 6 and 9 and the 24 covers just about anything else with buck–boost converters. Need to find some heavy copper cable and have a play.

It's an interesting idea, I doubt it's much more efficient than AC and smps's powering everything though.

What about pumped storage ? how efficient is that ?

I would expect the wear and tear on the pump/turbine to be less than the deterioration in a battery bank.

I live on the side of a mountain so having 2 ponds with a height difference would be easy, use solar to pump it uphill during the day and let it run down at night to meet my power needs.

What about building a big flywheel, spinning it using a solar powered motor in the day and using it to power a generator at night?

 

[WorkshopChris]

It's an interesting idea, I doubt it's much more efficient than AC and smps's powering everything though.

The smps aren't so bad its all the wall warts with not much more than a transformer, rectifier, smoothing cap feeding a cheap voltage regulator.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

What about pumped storage ? how efficient is that ?

I would expect the wear and tear on the pump/turbine to be less than the deterioration in a battery bank.

I live on the side of a mountain so having 2 ponds with a height difference would be easy, use solar to pump it uphill during the day and let it run down at night to meet my power needs.

I briefly looked into this but there are lots of losses that make it uneconomical on micro scale.

This is from:
http://forum.solar-electric.com/discussion/6104/micro-pumped-hydro-storage


Re: Micro Pumped Hydro Storage

5000 US gallons at a head height of 232 ft (this gives 100 PSI)

• 100 psi * 2.32 foot per PSI * 1 cf/s * 0.55 turbine eff * 0.085 = 10.846 kWatts
• 5,000 gallons * 1/7.48 gallons per cuft * 1/1cf per sec = 668 seconds = 11 minutes of power
• 10.846 kWatt * 11 min * 1/60 min per hour = 1.99 kWH per 5,000 gallons of water

If you want to run 1 kWatt:

1 cfm * 1kW/10.846 kW = 0.0922 cfm
11 min * 1 cfm /0.0922 cfm = 119 minutes

I will correct my post.

Thank you,
-Bill

 

[wookie]

I briefly looked into this but there are lots of losses that make it uneconomical on micro scale.

Thanks for that, so if I understand that example correctly, 5000 gallons equates to just under 11KW of power in an ideal world. Given that my usual power usage is between 250 and 500Watts, then that would provide me with 5 to 10 hours of supply. So if I did go down this route ideally I'd need a larger water storage system, also to reduce my power requirements as much as possible and have a few KWatts of both solar and wind to do the pumping as well as meet my daytime needs.

I can see me trying a small scale version of this in the next few years, a couple of IBC containers some pipe, a water turbine/generator and a pump and solar panel to pump it back up during the day.

One advantage with pumped storage is that every time it rains I'll be happy as it'll be free extra energy in the headstock, not that it rains much in Wales

 

[gaz1]

only works if you have an abundment of water all the time

for wood or solar theyve been testing a mini vortex system that powers a generator what your doing is creating a torrnado within a closed area which then powers the generator

for wood or the sun within a point you can use stirling engines

 

[onlyme]

Ram pump ?

 

[onlyme]

Wimshurst generator machine . Gasifier cookstove. Water ram. Tesla turbine. Just a few ideas.

 

[brightspark]

Pumping water uphill to generate electricity by letting it fall down again seems particularly inefficient to me.

It's going to take more energy to get it going up than you'll get out of it on the way down, and the pump and generator costs would surely outweigh the price of just using the wind/solar to keep a battery bank charged.

Batteries break down far less than pumps and generators too...

a few power stations do it pump it up on a night then during the day at peak demand can generate very quickly whereas a coal fired cannot stop and start . so there's no generation advantage. apart from that its uneconomical

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Thanks for that, so if I understand that example correctly, 5000 gallons equates to just under 11KW of power in an ideal world. Given that my usual power usage is between 250 and 500Watts, then that would provide me with 5 to 10 hours of supply. So if I did go down this route ideally I'd need a larger water storage system, also to reduce my power requirements as much as possible and have a few KWatts of both solar and wind to do the pumping as well as meet my daytime needs.

I can see me trying a small scale version of this in the next few years, a couple of IBC containers some pipe, a water turbine/generator and a pump and solar panel to pump it back up during the day.

One advantage with pumped storage is that every time it rains I'll be happy as it'll be free extra energy in the headstock, not that it rains much in Wales

The trouble is that 1000L = 256 US gallons so that equates to 20 IBC's for 5000 gallons!

 

[Robotstar5]

a few power stations do it pump it up on a night then during the day at peak demand can generate very quickly whereas a coal fired cannot stop and start . so there's no generation advantage. apart from that its uneconomical

Like Dinorwig "electric mountain"

 

[brightspark]

namely used when the break comes in corrie or the ex factor or any other crap they pump out on tv

 

[WorkshopChris]

Like Dinorwig "electric mountain"

namely used when the break comes in corrie or the ex factor or any other crap they pump out on tv

I wish i could find an article i was reading recently mainly about IOT (Internet of Things) part of the article mentioned that as household appliance's like fridges, freezers, heating systems etc become standard in the future combined with smart meters that may be able to reduce the need for the peak power demands as above by around 25%.

As they can predict the load on the grid accurately they could send out a signals to make sure things like the compressors were not running for that peak period also that electric used for stored heating is reduced in this time, then they gradually come back on line a few minutes latter.

 

[rtbcomp]

^^ they don't need smart meters for that. Economy 7 is switched on and off using radio signals (Radio 4 long wave).

 

[onlyme]

All sounds a bit Orwellian to me

 

[gaz1]

there is this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-make-millions--pay-sinister-technology.html

my opinion is the same we pay enough so maintain your system

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/for...es_claims_that_smart_meters_a_waste_of_money/

 

[normspanners]

" oh, we turn it off at the wall when we're nit using it to save electricity"

also would screw up speed because the B/B and would see it as a poss fault and would keep the speed down.

2000 installs (2000 each so 4000 meters)

is that 4000 not more like 4 million

 

[Kayos]

also would screw up speed because the B/B and would see it as a poss fault and would keep the speed down.

is that 4000 not more like 4 million

I personally installed 4000 meters, not 4 million

 

[normspanners]

Not read all the comments but I've done around 2000 installs (2000 each so 4000 meters)

2000 x 2000 = 4mil