Off Peak Storage Battery Charging
With the approach of winter and the possibility of restrictions on power use at peak times, I wonder whether an approach to off peak charging of storage batteries might be worth looking at?
At present, it is not attractive to charge off peak and consume later as there is an inherent loss in any system meaning that the consumer will get out a little less than they put in.
There is a need for the supply grid to be strengthened generally as we increase the use of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) which will add to the draw on the whole network, potentially often at peak times.
Despite being fairly up-to-date with equipment and technology, we currently cannot get an off peak tariff as having a SMETS2 smart meter installed, we are told that this is not compatible with Economy7 (or Economy10 etc). This seems to me a fairly simple problem in that - from what I can see - there are several registers (counters) in the smart meter and there must be a simple time signal for switching between these for logging use at different time phases. I know users who have Economy7 and SMETS2 but from what I’m told, they have to report use manually.
Spreading power needs would help power generation, network grid and network operators alike, as well as smoothing use generally and encouraging further investment in solar PV and battery storage so … is there a rapid solution?
