Michael S wrote:
> On Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 2:03:14 PM UTC+3, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>> Chris M. Thomasson wrote:
>>
>>>> For some reason reading this is making me think of a scenario where
>>>> everybody on Earth has an electric car, and all plugged them in to
>>>> charge, all at once. Also, assuming just for an experiment, that nobody
>>>> had a local source of power, solar, wind, turbines turning by a flowing
>>>> stream of water, ect...
>>>>
>>>> What would happen to the power grid?
>>>
>>> The same thing as every Friday on the island community of Hvaler with
>>> 4400 people that receives 20K+ weekend visitors, a large proportion of
>>> them plugging in their EVs to recharge after the drive down from Oslo:
>>>
>>> 2-3 years ago the local power company instituted the first severe max
>>> power charges in Norway, i.e. on top of the normal KWh price you also
>>> have to pay a surchage (equivalent to 60-70 KWh of usage) per KW for the
>>> 3 peak hours each month. The result was that most home and cabin
>>> electricity users quickly learned to not turn everything on at the same
>>> time.
>> Currently, electricity supply in most countries for private
>> customers is based on demand. However, the trend is clearly doing
>> towards a shortage economy.
>>
>> In the extreme case, turning on electricity whenever you want or need
>> it will become a luxury only available to a select few.
>>> (Power here in Norway is currently measured continuously and aggregated
>>> and uploaded every hour for each user.)
>> ... which is, of course, the first step towards that kind of setup.
>
> Norway currently (actually, 2014, I found no up to date data) is World #2 (after Iceland and ahead of Bahrain) in electric power consumption per capita.
> And according to my understanding their hydro power resources are still far away from being fully exploited.
> So, somehow I don't buy your prediction in this particular case.
>
Norway has "always" had a surplus of hydroelectric power, but the main
producers are very buzy constructing DC transmission lines to our
neighbor countries plus UK/Germany in order to be able to import EU
power prices to Norway. Currently those transmission lines cannot export
more than 20% of production, but that is sufficient to convert a surplus
market to one with significantly higher prices.

More importantly, it allows Norway to act as a huge battery, selling
expensive peak power to the EU when it is dark and/or not windy, and
buying back the very cheap surplus when both of those are generating.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

John Dallman wrote:
> In article <03a02706-ce03-4604-bd58-66cbb89a7d7cn@googlegroups.com>,
> already5chosen@yahoo.com (Michael S) wrote:
>
>> Norway currently (actually, 2014, I found no up to date data) is
>> World #2 (after Iceland and ahead of Bahrain) in electric power
>> consumption per capita.
>
> All three countries have large aluminium refining industries. This uses
> vast quantities of electricity, and hence is done where electricity is
> cheapest.

Also very relevant: An aluminium smelter can afford to delay the process
for some minutes or even hours when available power is sparse/expensive.

This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,
but we will end up doing that as well, along with intelligent home car
charge points.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On 8/1/2021 12:32 PM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> Michael S wrote:
>> On Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 2:03:14 PM UTC+3, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>>> Chris M. Thomasson wrote:
>>>
>>>>> For some reason reading this is making me think of a scenario where
>>>>> everybody on Earth has an electric car, and all plugged them in to
>>>>> charge, all at once. Also, assuming just for an experiment, that
>>>>> nobody
>>>>> had a local source of power, solar, wind, turbines turning by a
>>>>> flowing
>>>>> stream of water, ect...
>>>>>
>>>>> What would happen to the power grid?
>>>>
>>>> The same thing as every Friday on the island community of Hvaler with
>>>> 4400 people that receives 20K+ weekend visitors, a large proportion of
>>>> them plugging in their EVs to recharge after the drive down from Oslo:
>>>>
>>>> 2-3 years ago the local power company instituted the first severe max
>>>> power charges in Norway, i.e. on top of the normal KWh price you also
>>>> have to pay a surchage (equivalent to 60-70 KWh of usage) per KW for
>>>> the
>>>> 3 peak hours each month. The result was that most home and cabin
>>>> electricity users quickly learned to not turn everything on at the same
>>>> time.
>>> Currently, electricity supply in most countries for private
>>> customers is based on demand. However, the trend is clearly doing
>>> towards a shortage economy.
>>>
>>> In the extreme case, turning on electricity whenever you want or need
>>> it will become a luxury only available to a select few.
>>>> (Power here in Norway is currently measured continuously and aggregated
>>>> and uploaded every hour for each user.)
>>> ... which is, of course, the first step towards that kind of setup.
>>
>> Norway currently (actually, 2014, I found no up to date data) is World
>> #2 (after Iceland and ahead of Bahrain) in electric power consumption
>> per capita.
>> And according to my understanding their hydro power resources are
>> still far away from being fully exploited.
>> So, somehow I don't buy your prediction in this particular case.
>>
> Norway has "always" had a surplus of hydroelectric power, but the main
> producers are very buzy constructing DC transmission lines to our
> neighbor countries plus UK/Germany in order to be able to import EU
> power prices to Norway. Currently those transmission lines cannot export
> more than 20% of production, but that is sufficient to convert a surplus
> market to one with significantly higher prices.
>
> More importantly, it allows Norway to act as a huge battery, selling
> expensive peak power to the EU when it is dark and/or not windy, and
> buying back the very cheap surplus when both of those are generating.
>
> Terje
>

Which is the positive end - Nordkap?

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
>This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,

Controlling a million warm water heaters is dead easy. Many
electrically heated warm water heaters (probably more than a million)
in Austria use Nachtstrom (night current), that is electricity that is
available cheaply at night when demand is low, but run-of-the-river
power plants, coal power plants, and (foreign) nuclear power plants
still generate power. Nachtstrom is turned on between 10pm and 6am (I
think the contract guarantees that), but I have seen the heater go on
during the day on weekends, so apparently we now have cheap
electricity at those times, too.

Given that they have not changed the contracts to supply the
electricity during daytime or, say any 8h every day at the choosing of
the power company, we obviously still have more electricity supply
than demand at night, not during the day, unlike what some power
company lobbyists want to make us believe.

Technically Nachtstrom is separate lines within my flat, but AFAIK
they send a signal to the nearest transformer to supply these lines
with current or not. Nachtstrom has its own meter.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Saturday, July 31, 2021 at 2:14:53 AM UTC+3, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>
>> (..I thought the group would be interested in this..)
>>
>> https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/26/dell_energy_pcs/
>>
>> (..A few paragraphs of interest..)
>>
>> Dell is no longer shipping energy-hungry gaming PCs to
>> certain states in America because they demand more energy
>> than local standards allow.
>>
>> Customers seeking to purchase, for example, an Alienware
>> Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Gaming Desktop from Dell's website
>> and have it shipped to California are now presented with a
>> message that tells buyers they're out of luck.
>>
>> "This product cannot be shipped to the states of California,
>> Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power
>> consumption regulations adopted by those states," the
>> website says. "Any orders placed that are bound for those
>> states will be canceled."
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Such concern about energy efficiency appears to be
>> appropriate given the findings of a 2015 Semiconductor
>> Industry Association report that, given a benchmark system
>> of 10**-14 Joules/per bit transition, "computing will
>> not be sustainable by 2040, when the energy required for
>> computing will exceed the estimated world's energy
>> production."
>
> I am more than a little disappointed by poster's reactions in this
> thread. I was expecting to see more of libertarian sentiment,
> which was traditionally strongly represented on Usenet . SJWs
> took over?

Climate change not happening fast enough for you?

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 12:29:59 PM UTC+3, Tim Rentsch wrote:
> Michael S <already...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > On Saturday, July 31, 2021 at 2:14:53 AM UTC+3, Tim Rentsch wrote:
> >
> >> (..I thought the group would be interested in this..)
> >>
> >> https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/26/dell_energy_pcs/
> >>
> >> (..A few paragraphs of interest..)
> >>
> >> Dell is no longer shipping energy-hungry gaming PCs to
> >> certain states in America because they demand more energy
> >> than local standards allow.
> >>
> >> Customers seeking to purchase, for example, an Alienware
> >> Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Gaming Desktop from Dell's website
> >> and have it shipped to California are now presented with a
> >> message that tells buyers they're out of luck.
> >>
> >> "This product cannot be shipped to the states of California,
> >> Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power
> >> consumption regulations adopted by those states," the
> >> website says. "Any orders placed that are bound for those
> >> states will be canceled."
> >>
> >> ...
> >>
> >> Such concern about energy efficiency appears to be
> >> appropriate given the findings of a 2015 Semiconductor
> >> Industry Association report that, given a benchmark system
> >> of 10**-14 Joules/per bit transition, "computing will
> >> not be sustainable by 2040, when the energy required for
> >> computing will exceed the estimated world's energy
> >> production."
> >
> > I am more than a little disappointed by poster's reactions in this
> > thread. I was expecting to see more of libertarian sentiment,
> > which was traditionally strongly represented on Usenet . SJWs
> > took over?
> Climate change not happening fast enough for you?

Certainly not fast enough for governments to tell me how to use electricity, I bought and paid for.
It never will be fast enough.

See, I am old enough to realize the limits of Laissez-faire ideology.
I accept that government can tax electric companies to make my bills more painful.
They can even put upper limit on the amount of electricity, I am allowed to buy each month.
Or in peak hours.
But they shouldn't intervene in how I'm spending what is already mine.

Of course, I think that applying any of above mentioned limitations in State of California is ultra moronic.
Because it's a change money relatively to insane amounts of oil that f**ing californians are burning in their f**ing cars.
But that's off topic.

Ivan Godard wrote:
> On 8/1/2021 12:32 PM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>> Michael S wrote:
>>> Norway currently (actually, 2014, I found no up to date data) is
>>> World #2 (after Iceland and ahead of Bahrain) in electric power
>>> consumption per capita.
>>> And according to my understanding their hydro power resources are
>>> still far away from being fully exploited.
>>> So, somehow I don't buy your prediction in this particular case.
>>>
>> Norway has "always" had a surplus of hydroelectric power, but the main
>> producers are very buzy constructing DC transmission lines to our
>> neighbor countries plus UK/Germany in order to be able to import EU
>> power prices to Norway. Currently those transmission lines cannot
>> export more than 20% of production, but that is sufficient to convert
>> a surplus market to one with significantly higher prices.
>>
>> More importantly, it allows Norway to act as a huge battery, selling
>> expensive peak power to the EU when it is dark and/or not windy, and
>> buying back the very cheap surplus when both of those are generating.
>>
>> Terje
>>
>
> Which is the positive end - Nordkap?

Yeah, that should be obvious from the fat bottom (@Lindesnes light
house) and sharp top end @ Nordkapp.

Standard battery cell shape were based on this layout.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Anton Ertl wrote:
> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
>> This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,
>
> Controlling a million warm water heaters is dead easy. Many
> electrically heated warm water heaters (probably more than a million)
> in Austria use Nachtstrom (night current), that is electricity that is
> available cheaply at night when demand is low, but run-of-the-river
> power plants, coal power plants, and (foreign) nuclear power plants
> still generate power. Nachtstrom is turned on between 10pm and 6am (I
> think the contract guarantees that), but I have seen the heater go on
> during the day on weekends, so apparently we now have cheap
> electricity at those times, too.
>
> Given that they have not changed the contracts to supply the
> electricity during daytime or, say any 8h every day at the choosing of
> the power company, we obviously still have more electricity supply
> than demand at night, not during the day, unlike what some power
> company lobbyists want to make us believe.
>
> Technically Nachtstrom is separate lines within my flat, but AFAIK
> they send a signal to the nearest transformer to supply these lines
> with current or not. Nachtstrom has its own meter.

Anton, I think you just explained very clearly how this is _NOT_ "dead
easy". :-)

If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.

Such heaters are already available in Norway, from at least two
suppliers, but they cost 15-25% more than a normal ("stupid/dumb") heater.

One problem is that you cannot simply install an external sw breaker on
the circuit: Any load above a fairly low limit needs special fusing and
control circuit certification in order to allow it to be switched on/off
remotely.

BTW, when I was a young kid we still had a two-stage setup where you
subscribed to a given base load (typically 3-6 KW) and then you would
pay a fixed fee for that, plus a very low rate for any power you used up
to that limit. Any excess/peak power usage would be charged at a far
higher cost/KWh, so in those days you always had the water heater
circuit breaker in the kitchen, alongside the power meter: If the
current usage was close to the limit mom would turn the water heater
down from 3 to 2, 1 or even 0.

A decade or two earlier things were even more brutal: If peak power
usage exceeded the subscription max, then the main breaker would flip
and all power was turned off. OTOH, in those days electrical power used
to be very cheap indeed.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
>Anton, I think you just explained very clearly how this is _NOT_ "dead
>easy". :-)
>
>If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.

Sure, but it's dead easy because you don't have to, they are already
installed. If you mean a million more, yes, that's going to take some
time. The way it was sold was by offering lower rates for Nachtstrom.
And it was (is?) so normal that they installed the necessary wiring
when building the house.

>Such heaters are already available in Norway, from at least two
>suppliers, but they cost 15-25% more than a normal ("stupid/dumb") heater.

That's obviously a different system (my heater is dumb), but if you
don't have the wiring already, it's probably cheaper. If using such a
heater allows you to use lower rates, it can pay off. If your rates
are not like that, your power companies are obviously not interested
in steering demand.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:

> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.

It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
heaters have to be manufactured.

On 8/2/2021 6:29 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> Anton Ertl wrote:
>> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
>>> This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,
>>
>> Controlling a million warm water heaters is dead easy.  Many
>> electrically heated warm water heaters (probably more than a million)
>> in Austria use Nachtstrom (night current), that is electricity that is
>> available cheaply at night when demand is low, but run-of-the-river
>> power plants, coal power plants, and (foreign) nuclear power plants
>> still generate power.  Nachtstrom is turned on between 10pm and 6am (I
>> think the contract guarantees that), but I have seen the heater go on
>> during the day on weekends, so apparently we now have cheap
>> electricity at those times, too.
>>
>> Given that they have not changed the contracts to supply the
>> electricity during daytime or, say any 8h every day at the choosing of
>> the power company, we obviously still have more electricity supply
>> than demand at night, not during the day, unlike what some power
>> company lobbyists want to make us believe.
>>
>> Technically Nachtstrom is separate lines within my flat, but AFAIK
>> they send a signal to the nearest transformer to supply these lines
>> with current or not.  Nachtstrom has its own meter.
>
> Anton, I think you just explained very clearly how this is _NOT_ "dead
> easy". :-)
>
> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.

It's worse than that. It's not just a water heater. I think Anton
described a system where each house has to have two wiring systems, a
"normal" or full time one, and a night time one. You gain the savings
by plugging the water heater (and perhaps other things) into the night
time system.

While the additional system might not cost too much when you are
building the house, the "retrofit" would be very expensive. And there
is the additional cost for the utility company for the second set of
lines into the house, and the relevant control systems.

But the good side is you don't need a special, extra cost, water heater.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

Thomas Koenig [2021-08-02 16:06:09] wrote:
> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
> heaters have to be manufactured.

Damned embodied energy!

Stefan

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 11:22:34 AM UTC-5, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> On 8/2/2021 6:29 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> > Anton Ertl wrote:
> >> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> writes:
> >>> This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,
> >>
> >> Controlling a million warm water heaters is dead easy. Many
> >> electrically heated warm water heaters (probably more than a million)
> >> in Austria use Nachtstrom (night current), that is electricity that is
> >> available cheaply at night when demand is low, but run-of-the-river
> >> power plants, coal power plants, and (foreign) nuclear power plants
> >> still generate power. Nachtstrom is turned on between 10pm and 6am (I
> >> think the contract guarantees that), but I have seen the heater go on
> >> during the day on weekends, so apparently we now have cheap
> >> electricity at those times, too.
> >>
> >> Given that they have not changed the contracts to supply the
> >> electricity during daytime or, say any 8h every day at the choosing of
> >> the power company, we obviously still have more electricity supply
> >> than demand at night, not during the day, unlike what some power
> >> company lobbyists want to make us believe.
> >>
> >> Technically Nachtstrom is separate lines within my flat, but AFAIK
> >> they send a signal to the nearest transformer to supply these lines
> >> with current or not. Nachtstrom has its own meter.
> >
> > Anton, I think you just explained very clearly how this is _NOT_ "dead
> > easy". :-)
> >
> > If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
> > their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
> > capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
<
> It's worse than that. It's not just a water heater. I think Anton
> described a system where each house has to have two wiring systems, a
> "normal" or full time one, and a night time one. You gain the savings
> by plugging the water heater (and perhaps other things) into the night
> time system.
>
> While the additional system might not cost too much when you are
> building the house, the "retrofit" would be very expensive. And there
> is the additional cost for the utility company for the second set of
> lines into the house, and the relevant control systems.
<
Err, no.
<
The meters one can stick onto the side of the wall today can be smart enough
to record the time of the energy along with the amount of energy and create a
bill accordingly. Low level power consumption 24/7/365 gets one billing,
impulse power consumption another.
<
Hint:: I already have such metering on my house.
>
> But the good side is you don't need a special, extra cost, water heater.
>
>
> --
> - Stephen Fuld
> (e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

On 8/2/2021 10:23 AM, MitchAlsup wrote:
> On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 11:22:34 AM UTC-5, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>> On 8/2/2021 6:29 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>>> Anton Ertl wrote:
>>>> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> writes:
>>>>> This is far easier than trying to control a million warm water heaters,
>>>>
>>>> Controlling a million warm water heaters is dead easy. Many
>>>> electrically heated warm water heaters (probably more than a million)
>>>> in Austria use Nachtstrom (night current), that is electricity that is
>>>> available cheaply at night when demand is low, but run-of-the-river
>>>> power plants, coal power plants, and (foreign) nuclear power plants
>>>> still generate power. Nachtstrom is turned on between 10pm and 6am (I
>>>> think the contract guarantees that), but I have seen the heater go on
>>>> during the day on weekends, so apparently we now have cheap
>>>> electricity at those times, too.
>>>>
>>>> Given that they have not changed the contracts to supply the
>>>> electricity during daytime or, say any 8h every day at the choosing of
>>>> the power company, we obviously still have more electricity supply
>>>> than demand at night, not during the day, unlike what some power
>>>> company lobbyists want to make us believe.
>>>>
>>>> Technically Nachtstrom is separate lines within my flat, but AFAIK
>>>> they send a signal to the nearest transformer to supply these lines
>>>> with current or not. Nachtstrom has its own meter.
>>>
>>> Anton, I think you just explained very clearly how this is _NOT_ "dead
>>> easy". :-)
>>>
>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
> <
>> It's worse than that. It's not just a water heater. I think Anton
>> described a system where each house has to have two wiring systems, a
>> "normal" or full time one, and a night time one. You gain the savings
>> by plugging the water heater (and perhaps other things) into the night
>> time system.
>>
>> While the additional system might not cost too much when you are
>> building the house, the "retrofit" would be very expensive. And there
>> is the additional cost for the utility company for the second set of
>> lines into the house, and the relevant control systems.
> <
> Err, no.
> <
> The meters one can stick onto the side of the wall today can be smart enough
> to record the time of the energy along with the amount of energy and create a
> bill accordingly. Low level power consumption 24/7/365 gets one billing,
> impulse power consumption another.
> <
> Hint:: I already have such metering on my house.

Sure. But presupposes that you manually insure that certain things only
turn on when power cost is low. In order to make that savings
automatic, you could use the solution Terje proposed, by replacing the
water heater (and perhaps other things) with "time sensitive" versions,
or have, as Anton was talking about, a dual power system so you plug the
appropriate appliances into that system. Either of those makes the
savings, that you can already obtain manually, automatic.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

Stephen Fuld <sfuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
>It's worse than that. It's not just a water heater. I think Anton
>described a system where each house has to have two wiring systems, a
>"normal" or full time one, and a night time one. You gain the savings
>by plugging the water heater (and perhaps other things) into the night
>time system.
>
>While the additional system might not cost too much when you are
>building the house, the "retrofit" would be very expensive. And there
>is the additional cost for the utility company for the second set of
>lines into the house, and the relevant control systems.

It's in the interest of the utility company, that's why they installed
the extra meter and got the building company to put in the extra
wires. The extra wires are there so that the utility company can
meter the night time system (with 1950s technology).

The extra cost was probably not that bad, because otherwise either the
building company would have had to make the full-time wires thicker,
or they would have put the heater on a separate circuit anyway (at the
same cost in wiring as with a separate night circuit).

These days, theoretically you can do all of this with a smartmeter.
Have a smart switch that turns the water heater on when the
electricity is cheap (and is metered as cheap) and turns it off when
the water is warm enough or the price too high (with some balancing so
that you don't run out of warm water).

In practice, I have yet to see this happen, despite the fact that we
are all compelled to get a smartmeter (we can opt out of enabling the
smartness, though).

>But the good side is you don't need a special, extra cost, water heater.

Actually, there is a significant difference between a water heater
that is designed for night-time heating and one that is designed for
on-demand heating: The former one needs a tank for quite a bit of
water (100l/person is a number I have read), and isolation for the
tank, the latter needs a much smaller tank and less isolation.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>
>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>
>It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>heaters have to be manufactured.

Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
to be already set up.

As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
pumped-storage capacity)
<https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
expensive, either.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

On 8/2/2021 10:58 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:
> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>
>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>>
>> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>> heaters have to be manufactured.
>
> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
> It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
> working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
> also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
> psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
> to be already set up.
>
> As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
> generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
> facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
> facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
> pumped-storage capacity)
> <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
> Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
> wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
> expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
> expensive, either.
>
> - anton
>

Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
battery that you charge at night rates?

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 1:28:55 PM UTC-5, Anton Ertl wrote:
> Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
> >Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> schrieb:
> >
> >> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
> >> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
> >> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
> >
> >It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
> >heaters have to be manufactured.
> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
> It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
> working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
> also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
> psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
> to be already set up.
<
You know, back when I was in college (1970-1976) there was a lot of
blow back during the oil crisis of the early 1970s about people in
Pennsylvania with oil heaters and the cost of oil. Now, fully 50 years
later we still those same people crying about the cost of heating their
homes every winter.
<
I was sympathetic 50 years ago to the plight of the innocent.
<
50 years later I see no innocents left.
>
> As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
> generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
> facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
> facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
> pumped-storage capacity)
> <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
> Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
> wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
> expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
> expensive, either.
> - anton
> --
> 'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
> Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7...@googlegroups.com>

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 1:34:13 PM UTC-5, Ivan Godard wrote:
> On 8/2/2021 10:58 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:
> > Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
> >> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> schrieb:
> >>
> >>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
> >>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
> >>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
> >>
> >> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
> >> heaters have to be manufactured.
> >
> > Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
> > It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
> > working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
> > also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
> > psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
> > to be already set up.
> >
> > As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
> > generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
> > facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
> > facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
> > pumped-storage capacity)
> > <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
> > Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
> > wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
> > expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
> > expensive, either.
> >
> > - anton
> >
> Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
> battery that you charge at night rates?
<
5 years ago I had a duplex rewired so I could install a machine shop in the
third "room" of the complex--it was originally a garage, but the previous owner
tried to make it into a triplex and the city said no. This was when we bought the
place.
<
Some 18 years later, after using the 3rd "room" as storage, I converted it into a
machine shop (Mill, Lathe, bandsaw, table saw,...)
<
The cost to require the place and bring the building up to code was more than
the cost of all the machines put together (more than $15,000) !!!
<
So, in almost all regards, the cost of the battery would be lower--unless
city codes were involved, and at that point it will be found cheaper to
do absolutely nothing....................................sad...................

On Mon, 2 Aug 2021 03:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Michael S
<already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I accept that government can tax electric companies to make my bills
>more painful. They can even put upper limit on the amount of
>electricity, I am allowed to buy each month. Or in peak hours.
>But they shouldn't intervene in how I'm spending what is already mine.

You forget the return path: the regulators will argue that you didn't
/purchase/ the electricity but rather you only rented it for a few
milliseconds. 8-)

>Of course, I think that applying any of above mentioned limitations in
>State of California is ultra moronic.

Most of what California does is moronic.

On Mon, 2 Aug 2021 11:34:11 -0700, Ivan Godard
<ivan@millcomputing.com> wrote:

>On 8/2/2021 10:58 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:
>> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>>> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>>
>>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>>>
>>> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>>> heaters have to be manufactured.
>>
>> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
>> It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
>> working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
>> also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
>> psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
>> to be already set up.
>>
>> As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
>> generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
>> facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
>> facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
>> pumped-storage capacity)
>> <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
>> Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
>> wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
>> expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
>> expensive, either.
>>
>> - anton
>>
>
>Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
>battery that you charge at night rates?

An interesting question if you consider the environmental costs of
- constructing the battery,
- generating the energy to repeatedly charge it, and
- recycling the battery when it no longer works

Batteries are among the environmentally dirtiest of technologies ...
right up there with semiconductors and solar cells.

Then to charge a battery requires generating more energy than the
battery will hold. Depending on the chemistry, it may take a lot more
energy.

YMMV.

MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> wrote:
> On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 1:34:13 PM UTC-5, Ivan Godard wrote:
>> On 8/2/2021 10:58 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:
>>> Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
>>>> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>>>>
>>>> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>>>> heaters have to be manufactured.
>>>
>>> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
>>> It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
>>> working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
>>> also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
>>> psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
>>> to be already set up.
>>>
>>> As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
>>> generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
>>> facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
>>> facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
>>> pumped-storage capacity)
>>> <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
>>> Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
>>> wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
>>> expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
>>> expensive, either.
>>>
>>> - anton
>>>
>> Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
>> battery that you charge at night rates?
> <
> 5 years ago I had a duplex rewired so I could install a machine shop in the
> third "room" of the complex--it was originally a garage, but the previous owner
> tried to make it into a triplex and the city said no. This was when we bought the
> place.
> <
> Some 18 years later, after using the 3rd "room" as storage, I converted it into a
> machine shop (Mill, Lathe, bandsaw, table saw,...)
> <
> The cost to require the place and bring the building up to code was more than
> the cost of all the machines put together (more than $15,000) !!!

Wiring a room is something I did as a child to help my family, remove a
zero if you do the job yourself. And the government does not need to know
unless you upgrade the main breaker box, which you won’t. Put a small
breaker box in the room and run surface tube to all the new outlet boxes.
When done run the big expensive wire(s) to your main box, flip the main
breaker off and wire it up to big breakers. Or pay a Mexican $100 to do the
last step, just pick up a Mexican day laborer waiting at your local
building supply store, and ask “electrical work”.

If the government does find out all they can do is inspect it and ask that
you fix any mistakes. Electricition’s always make some mistakes, not a big
deal.

Almost all electrical work today is done by unlicensed unskilled untrained
illegal Mexican labor. The only guy who can speak English is the Forman you
got the quote from, who you will never see on the job site.

You will feel SO good when the job is done dropping a zero off the quote
doing it yourself. Or even just paying the Mexican labor yourself and
saving 3/4ths the cost.

> So, in almost all regards, the cost of the battery would be lower--unless
> city codes were involved, and at that point it will be found cheaper to
> do absolutely nothing....................................sad...................
>

On 8/2/2021 6:56 PM, George Neuner wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Aug 2021 11:34:11 -0700, Ivan Godard
> <ivan@millcomputing.com> wrote:
>
>> On 8/2/2021 10:58 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:
>>> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>>>> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>>>>
>>>> It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>>>> heaters have to be manufactured.
>>>
>>> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible. Reality check:
>>> It has been done. In the usual case not by replacing existing and
>>> working heaters, but by getting into new buildings. I guess there are
>>> also some cases where the new heater replaced a failed or
>>> psychologically obsolete one, but the infrastructure would have needed
>>> to be already set up.
>>>
>>> As for resource usage, an alternative is to store the electricity
>>> generated during low-demand times in pumped-storage hydroelectric
>>> facilities. Some years ago they spent EUR 400M on the Reisseck II
>>> facility (which mainly connects two older systems to increase the
>>> pumped-storage capacity)
>>> <https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/news-presse/presse/2016/10/07/reisseck2>.
>>> Spending some money on meters and to convince builders to put in extra
>>> wiring and heaters with an isolated tank was probably not that
>>> expensive in comparison, and the raw material usage probably not that
>>> expensive, either.
>>>
>>> - anton
>>>
>>
>> Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
>> battery that you charge at night rates?
>
> An interesting question if you consider the environmental costs of
> - constructing the battery,
> - generating the energy to repeatedly charge it, and
> - recycling the battery when it no longer works
>
> Batteries are among the environmentally dirtiest of technologies ...
> right up there with semiconductors and solar cells.
>
> Then to charge a battery requires generating more energy than the
> battery will hold. Depending on the chemistry, it may take a lot more
> energy.
>
> YMMV.
>

I am wondering what you think about using a metal hydride to store hydrogen?

https://youtu.be/Ytg23mDd1a4

Ivan Godard <ivan@millcomputing.com> writes:
>Would rewiring the house be more or less expensive than installing a
>battery that you charge at night rates?

In our case the house was not rewired, but anyway: Over the course of
60+ years, the batteries would have been more expensive. It probably
would have been more expensive even in initial investment: The
batteries themselves cost, but they also need a battery room that has
enough ventilation to get rid of any possible hydrogen before the
concentration reaches dangerous levels, and you want to have a
firewall between the battery room and the rest.

Concerning the efficiency, the water tank also does not have 100%
efficiency, because the insulation is not perfect.

- anton
--
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> schrieb:
> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>>Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>
>>> If/when you first have to persuade one million home owners to replace
>>> their currently working water heater with one that has remote control
>>> capability, you are facing a very uphill struggle.
>>
>>It is also a waste, or should I say, use of resources - those new
>>heaters have to be manufactured.
>
> Reading you two, one might think that it's impossible.

It is not impossible, of course.

> Reality check:
> It has been done.

That something has been done is no guarantee that it made sense.

You have to look at all the aspects, also the negative ones,
which is hard work and all to often overlooked.