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Comment by timonoko | Hacker News Reader

Methinks we are moving to wrong direction. Instead of massive battery farms, we should focus on intelligent metering. Every consumer should have wireless metering unit, which shows the price of electricity at every moment with big red numbers. Then it is your choice, you can waste your monies or invest on 100 kwh battery, which can also can optimize the charging-recharging cycle. In Europe the price of electricity is often momentarily negative, when there is good wind blowing. That would the time to bake the pie and clean youres freezer.

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Can we please borrow the improv "yes, and" for climate solutions?

Time-of-use metering is not new. The UK has had the option of cheap overnight tariff for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7 - although that was traditionally implemented as a separate circuit.

Meanwhile batteries are still useful at grid level for "frequency response" and stabilisation of dips (e.g. generator trip-outs). Being able to turn on a few hundred megawatts within a 50Hz cycle is a very useful feature.

I would rather enjoy constant nuclear energy rather than be a slave for some device which dictates me when to cook or wash. People where is your fundamental freedom desire?

The view of the European Union (aka German Green Party) is that Nukular Energy is not renewable or desirable. https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-...

That's not the view of the EU, many countries in it are heavily pro-nuclear and fighting to have it marked as "green".

Certain countries in the EU view that nuclear energy is not "green", not the whole EU. The European Commission will make a call very soon for the upcoming funding period and frankly it looks like they will support nuclear energy.

Surely that must be a politically motivated stance.

Germany is champion of hypocrisy: stopped nuclear plants and ramped up coal usage, now plans to build gas fired stations and labels them green.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec...

Not just any coal either. They opted for brown coal, the least efficient and most dirty kind.

In reality/history nuclear has often been the reason to introduce time of use pricing, to encourage people to move loads to the overnight demand lulls to better match nuclear's flat output.

So I guess that's one more flaw in the extreme anarchist case for more nuclear power.

The same argument can certainly be made for solar. To encourage you to use power while it's available, so for example only use your lights during the daytime hours.

Lights are such a minor power draw these days they’re almost a rounding error.

An electric car driven 30 miles per day is going to use 3000-9000 Wh, a 10 W LED left on overnight is going to use ~120 Wh.

>People where is your fundamental freedom desire?

This trait has been slowly but surely bred out of the modern population I think.

> People where is your fundamental freedom desire?

Knowing the price of something you consume is taking away your fundamental freedom? If that's the case, you should probably stop looking at prices when making any purchases - all things from groceries, electronics, cars ... wouldn't want to lose more of it.

It goes to show how meaninglessly people now use that word - it's essential become a flag for "anything I like (or dislike)" with no bearing on reality.

I would much rather than a public utility look after that for me, so that I don't have to carefully time my freezer-cleaning. If it's worth buying batteries then let them do that in the most cost-efficient manner, and let me not have to micromanage that part of my life.

There are some massive electricity consumers like air conditioners, air heating, water heating, refrigerators. Those have some freedom when they're working in a continuous mode. Basically you can heat air when it's cheap and stop heating when it's expensive as long as temperature is good enough. You don't have to micromanage it yourself, with proper software and protocols it could be done automatically.

My parents installed that in 1988. The technology has existed for years. The power company charged half price for electric and gave them a second water heater so that they could heat the water at night (electric company controlled), and when power demand was high the air conditioner ran for 15 minutes, off for 10. (this mostly meant we kept the AC on all day, it wouldn't cool the house off when we got home but would keep it cool all day and cost less than setback thermostats). Refrigerators were not on the plan, but they don't draw near as much power.

Yes, I think it is a missed opportunity. Hopefully, we are slowly getting there. We have smart meters, smart thermostats, smart everything, all these devices should be able to negotiate for the best time to run. The big red display can be a thing, but I don't want to micromanage my power consumption when it can be done automatically.

We already have boilers that turn off during peak hours, but you can also have your thermostats take the cost of electricity into account, there is a video by Technology Connections on that ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f9GpMWdvWI ). You should also have a "run when it is cheap" button on your appliances, most already have a delayed start feature, we can be a little smarter. Electric cars are even better because not only you can schedule charging but they are also batteries.

We already have the technology to do all that, at most, all we need is a standardization effort. Power line communication seems like a good fit. It is already used in smart meters to automate readings, and this way, any device that is plugged in knows how much it costs and can adjust, including the big red display if you want one.

This already exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/

This is a fairly key part of most actual efforts, in fact many people installing grid batteries are doing so in order to buy low and sell high. That doesnt work if a flat rate has been set.

Similarly the batteries in cars are very easy to charge according to rime of use prices or predicted marginal carbon.

The real-time strategy game genre is already there for people who enjoy that sort of thing.

It feels like a step backwards to force this kind of gamification onto people.

The game would invisible and automatic once you have your own battery.

I realized that me myself could suffice with quite tiny 10kwh battery for a week. I do not eat stuff that requires refrigerator running all the time and I bake my humble pies with Russian Gas.

Problem with small installations is that they are a lot lot more expensive per kwh to run...

Howcome? Same banks of 18650-batteries and inverters are cheap. Only problem are maybe the safety issues. But in multistory houses the batteries would be in the basement and only those display units are in the homes.

Because large banks can amortize usage over many homes. A battery bank for your house needs to be large enough for your worst case usage even though you rarely get there. If you add up all the breakers in my box it is far more power than the power company can supply to my house - but I never use them all at once. My house has a backup generator that can supply far less than the power company: it is enough for typical use but I have to be careful when I'm using it.

A large bank can take advantage that typical is far less than worst case, and not everyone will hit the worst case at the same time. Thus a large bank to supply the same number of users can be far smaller than every user having their own small bank. (though it is possible for all the small banks to supply to each other)

I agree that increasing efficiency has enormous potential, but consumers are almost certainly responsible for only a small share of overall energy consumption compared with industry and transport. We need to target our measures there, which implies adjusting incentives. We really should build pollution charges into the cost of electricity (“carbon pricing” if you’re talking to conservatives who balk at the “carbon tax” and the inverse for progressives who balk at markets); however, corporations won’t stand for that, and they effectively govern us over here in the United States. Moreover, this would also trickle down to consumers at least until industries respond by making their processes more efficient which would presumably drive public sentiment in favor of pollution (regrettably, I suspect we are a weak-willed people these days, but I’d be happy to be disproven).

> however, corporations won’t stand for that, and they effectively govern us over here in the United States.

How does this square with this?

> Moreover, this would also trickle down to consumers at least until industries respond by making their processes more efficient which would presumably drive public sentiment in favor of pollution (regrettably, I suspect we are a weak-willed people these days, but I’d be happy to be disproven).

People have the power to vote in the US. They have had many decades to vote for politicians that will increase taxes on fossil fuel. European countries have voted to do that many, many years ago.

It befuddles me when blame is placed on corporations in a country whose population explicitly prioritizes driving pickup trucks and SUVs for grocery and school runs. Any upwards movement in fossil fuel prices, which are already among the lowest for large democratic countries, results in the general public to be furious at politicians.

The facts illustrate a simple truth: Voters in America only want a reduction in usage of fossil fuels as long as it does not affect their expected future lifestyle.

I’m on mobile, so I don’t have the study link handy, but a bill which is very popular among ordinary people and very unpopular among corporations stands something like a 30% chance of being passed into law while a bill which is very popular among corporations but very unpopular among voters has nearly 100% chance of being signed into law (I don’t remember exact numbers).

> It befuddles me when blame is placed on corporations in a country whose population explicitly prioritizes driving pickup trucks and SUVs for grocery and school runs. Any upwards movement in fossil fuel prices, which are already among the lowest for large democratic countries, results in the general public to be furious at politicians.

Everyone is just responding to market incentives at the end of the day, which is the point behind carbon pricing: align our environmental and financial incentives. So I prefer to focus on systemic solutions rather than placing blame, although I certainly think it’s good and useful to blame/shame corporations and politicians who actively oppose the public good (even though this kind of corruption is another form of responding to incentives).

> Voters in America only want a reduction in usage of fossil fuels as long as it does not affect their expected future lifestyle

Perhaps, but that’s irrelevant because we don’t actually need to change our lifestyles very much. Implement a carbon tax and gradually raise the price over time so it gives corporations some time to optimize their processes for efficiency thereby keeping consumer costs low. That corporations can and do respond to legislated incentives is one of the takeaways of TFA, after all.

Industry has already responded and will continue to do so.

My company has a foundry where we melt iron. Our production schedule is planed with the power company months in advance so we can get the lowest possible rates. The factory only works the night shift. The factory shuts down for maintenance in December (the power we don't use goes to Christmas lights). We are not the only company doing that.

Not all industry can respond those. Restaurants use a lot of energy (I'm guessing less than cooking at home though - anyone know how to check this), but they have to cook when people want food not when energy is abundant.

Very interesting thanks for your comment!

What is your foundry yearly "capacity" factor? Below 30% if only night shifts and some monthes off?

I'm curious wether foundry like yours could run only on PV produced electricity and some wind.

I have no idea and probably wouldn't be allowed to talk if I did.

We have one factory that does 5 months of production, then 7 of maintenance. Everything is replaced in those 7 months, thus ensuring there are no breakdowns (just in time doesn't work if the conveyor breaks). The workers mostly go to a different factory in the area on the opposite schedule, we plan labor that way so they have a job year round just a different destination.

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