Getting your message straight

From the beginning of Ed Davey's speech

If businesses don’t have confidence in the security of energy supply, their costs go up.

Higher insurance premiums, expensive back-up systems.

From the end of Ed Davey's speech

Demand Side Balancing Reserve will not force any single business or household to switch off or reduce their electricity.

It is entirely voluntary. Nobody will get cut off. No economic activity will be curtailed.

This is about rewarding volunteer businesses. With the flexibility to reduce their use of National Grid supplied electricity. At peak times only. If called upon.

By changing a shift pattern maybe. Or switching to on-site generation rather than relying on the Grid.

Comments

[sherlock1]

John Arthur - a couple of years ago that other thorn in Tesco's side, Aldi, was selling 3.2kW generators for the same price as your Lidl one - but I got the last one for £129.99..!

Can't wait for winter 2014...

[dave ward]

@ mikeh - If unreliable supplies become the norm, any industrial process with sensitive control gear is going to need a UPS. An "Uninteruptible Power Supply" is usually comprised of a hefty battery bank, and DC - mains inverter / battery charger. The company would have to re-arrange the electrical distribution to ensure sensitive circuits are fed by the UPS, leaving non-essential ones direct from the mains. Of course, this doesn't come cheap, and the cost will have to be factored against the disruption caused by loss of supply.

Those of you considering some form of independent home supply could employ a similar arrangement - particularly if a new build property is involved. Marine suppliers are a good source of inverter / chargers, and many of these can switch from standby to battery power in milliseconds - fast enough that electronic equipment won't notice. Less critical, and heavy loads, such as the washing machine, fridge, freezer etc can run on the normal mains. Even if you can't afford a UPS, separating the high power circuits from things like basic lighting and the central heating supply, reduces the risk of overloading a small generator.

[Lord Beaverbrook]

Jun 11, 2014 at 10:15 AM | Andrew Duffin

You forgot to add that the sky is falling in!

[Billy Liar]

Below is a taste of what will happen with a smart grid and sustainable energy sources. Read the section on 'Energy Demand Management'. Here's a sample:

When a user requests energy, he/she has to push a switch located next to the power socket and wait for the system to check for energy availability. If energy can be delivered according to the system's priorities, the switch turns green, if not, the switch remains red and the user has to wait.

http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/smart_grid/

[Billy Liar]

I forgot to mention that the 'zero emission*' Antarctic Station has only been going 5 years and already 2 of its 9 windmills are down for lack of spare parts.

Maintenance operations scheduled at the station for this year were also completed, save for a problem with two of our wind turbines which will not be operational due to parts that couldn't be delivered this season.

http://www.antarcticstation.org/news_press/news_detail/the_journey_home_begins

Oh, and it is unmanned in the winter - presumably because there is not enough energy to keep the place warm.

* except for their snow tractors and skidoos.