Electricity needs in the future/now?

[Mike Johnson]

Interesting interview with a professor who seems to know what he is talking about.

 

[Moley]

I've only watched 30 mins so far but it does seem very interesting. What I've seen so far makes a lot more sense than what a lot of others put out. The costs involved with just improving the NG network to cope are staggering. Perhaps he should try advising some of our politicians.

 

[littlespark]

the 2035 deadline is looming, but we are in no shape to commit to EV's all round.

To drive in this country north to south in a pure EV would possibly take twice as long for charging stops…. But really not a huge problem… many people might take 2 days to drive it….

Now think about places like remote USA or Australia… where your next door neighbour could be 150 miles away.
These countries cannot adapt to EV any quicker than us, and likely never will.


Something else I’ve been thinking about….
What happens when we stop digging holes in the ground? All that gas needs to come out somewhere…

 

[Mike Johnson]

2035 deadline, are we sure we can make all the infrastructure updates in eleven years.

It took Souther Water eleven days to close and then re-open our Road again repairing a leak to our water meter that took just over an hour, I think that is fairly typical or our utilities. And by the by the leak was not even in the road, but on a 4.5M wide grass verge in a lane that sees very little traffic.

 

[snowhead]

No chance of hitting the 2035 target.

As of March 2023 roughly 57% of meters have been upgraded to "Smart", that's around 34 million.

Of those,
3 million don't work / have all features working, like remote reading or display working.
7 million, (may include some of the 3m) will need a revisit before 2G and 3G are turned off to update the comms.

And the 34m have been installed where suckers customers have fallen for the hype of it will save you money.
There is no up to date evidence that going "Smart" does save any money.
Energy suppliers are now reporting resistance by the remaining customers to go "Smart"

All they had to do for the "Smart" meters was visit houses and small businesses swop the meters and move on.

To upgrade the infrastructure needs massive planning, massive investment and massive construction.

Already the Nimbys are trying to block new pylons and excavations for cables.

 

[Dustydazzler]

My electric smart meter hasn't worked in over 3 years , i get a phone every 6 - 9 months offereing to come round and replace it.
I just fob them off saying I am too busy to stay in an wait for them to come round..

As for the 2035 all electric deadline , not a chance this will be met

 

[Simon47]

There is no up to date evidence that going "Smart" does save any money.

I belive that many of the saving originally in the business case have "failed to materialise" - to the extent that if updated, I doubt there would be a case.
Example: originally intended that they would form a distributed network of end-user voltage monitoring that the DNOs could use for network management. AIUI the SMETS standard didn't include an accurate enough measurement ability to provide that.

But as for end-user savings, changes in behaviour could be achieved with the cheap clip on kits you can buy for £30 ! And the industry even has a term called TTD - "time to drawer" for the display unit. Apparently a few weeks.

As to running washing machines and tumble driers overnight - good luck to those living in flats, apart from the drier fires.

Already the Nimbys are trying to block new pylons and excavations for cables.

Locally one of the engineering institutions arranged a presentation on a local grid upgrade (400kV link from west Scotland to Morecambe). Needless to say there's "some opposition" to the pylons and oeople asking why they weren't planning buried cables for the whole route.
In hindsight I wish I'd done it, but I was tempted to ask for a show of hands of those against the pylons, then "put your hands down if you've never looked for cheaper electricity or complained about the cost". And then pointed out the hypocrisy of those still with their hands up.
I had alresdy asked and the speaker indicated tbat roughly buried HV cables are 10x the cost of overhead, and tunnels (as planned under Morecambe Bay) around 10x the cost of buried. My expectation is that just about everyone demanding a more expensive project would also be complaining about their lecky bills.