Found a Pyne Pod 8500 discarded in the grass during a walk into town yesterday
Surprisingly sophisticated charging circuitry for an item designed to be disposable. No obvious way to open it in order for owners to refill the tank or to swap in a new atomizer module.
🆕 blog! “We pay 12p / kWh for electricity - thanks to a smart tariff and battery”
I love my solar panels. But the solar panels don't love the British midwinter. Most of the year, my panels produce more electricity than I can use. But in winter we're lucky if they produce 3kWh per day - and most of the time it is considerab…
I love my solar panels. But the solar panels don't love the British midwinter. Most of the year, my panels produce more electricity than I can use. But in winter we're lucky if they produce 3kWh per day - and most of the time it is considerably less.
So our winter electricity bills must be massive, right?
The Octopus smart tariff charges us a variable amount throughout the day. Every 30 minutes the prices change to reflect the demands on the grid. During peak times, it can go as high as £1/kWh. That's a good incentive not to run the tumble-dryer at the same time as the rest of the country is cooking dinner!
During quieter times, the price of electricity drops - there isn't much demand at 3AM so prices fall. Sometimes they fall to zero. Other times, they fall into negative territory and we get paid to use electricity.
Now, that's all well and good, but most people don't want to shift their consumption habits. The dishwasher goes on when it is full and dinner is cooked before Coronation Street starts. That's where the battery comes in.
We have a 4.8kWh battery. It is hooked up to the Internet and knows what our energy prices are minute-to-minute. When electricity is cheap, it charges up from the grid. When electricity is expensive, it discharges into our home. If we boil the kettle at 7pm, the sensors on the battery detect that we're using expensive electricity and starts outputting stored electricity.
Essentially, we don't have to alter our lifestyle at all. Here's a typical December day. The graph is quite complicated, so let me step you through it.
The bottom graph shows how expensive it is to buy electricity throughout the day. As you can see, there is a peak in the early evening when electricity becomes expensive.
The top graph has two interesting lines on it. The purple line shows how much electricity we're drawing from the grid, the blue line shows what the battery is doing. Early in the morning electricity is cheap - you can see the purple line rising as the blue line falls. That shows the battery is charging. You will notice that it only charges at the cheapest possible times.
In the evening, you can see the purple line dip to zero and the blue line rise. That shows the battery is discharging into our home and there in no electricity being purchased from the grid. There's a similar dip at about 0830 when there's a little spike in price. Clever battery!
I want to stress that is is all automated. I don't have to do a single thing. The battery speaks directly to my electricity provider to get the half-hourly costs. The battery can predict what our usage will be, but keeps most of the electricity for the expensive times of day. Our smart meter sends our usage back to the energy company automatically.
Against a normal tariff of 28.5p/kWh, I'm paying 12.4p/kWh. That's a saving of 16.1p/kWh.
The bill above shows 320kWh per month, which means a saving of £51 from the electricity I buy. That's approximately a 55% discount.
We've had that battery since August, so about 5 months. In that time it has saved us approximately 500kWh. We only moved onto the smart tariff a few months ago, so work out the savings there is complex - but I estimate it's about £130.
December is a high use month (lots of lights on and oven cooking). During summer, the battery mostly fills up with free solar power. It is hard to predict exactly what we'll save in a year, but it should easily for 50% off our electricity bills.
But, of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Our 4.8kWh battery cost about £2,700 to supply and install. That's a large chunk of change. Based on our current projections, its payback period should be about 7 years. Of course, if electricity prices rise significantly, the payback period will shorten.
Solar panels are also expensive to install - between £4,000 and £12,000 depending on your property and how complex your roof is. They mean we pay virtually nothing for electricity in spring and summer. Again, the payback period is under a decade.
We can also sell our excess solar back to the grid. In theory we could also buy cheap electricity in the morning, store it in the battery, and then sell it back at peak times. In practice it isn't worth it; the cost of buying electricity at peak is higher than the price we could sell it for. So it makes sense to use the power rather than selling it.
If you can afford the large up-front capital costs, solar + battery allows you to make massive savings with a dynamic tariff. In times of solar excess, we pay close to nothing per kWh. In winter, we shift our consumption to pay at the cheap rate.
Effectively, it's like pre-purchasing all your electricity for the next decade.
There's no doubt that the cost makes this prohibitive to many people. Ideally, the state should be mandating that all new homes have solar panels and space for optional batteries. We also need V2G (Vehicle to Grid) to allow electric cars to act as home batteries.
But there's no doubt that these technologies actually work! Yes, solar works in rainy London. And, yes, even fairly small batteries can make a significant difference in winter. We're on the cusp of a domestic energy revolution. When coupled with a smart tariff, it means people don't have to change the way they behave in order to save energy.
The #battery on my #Kindle needs replacing. I'm trawling through websites and videos, searching for the correct model, of the hundreds produced and then dumped (nearly as bad as printers).
One webpage says a Kindle should last 2-5 years before needing a replacement battery. Mine will be 12 years old next month. Amazon no longer acknowledges it, which is fine because it still works for @gutenberg_org#free#ebooks. Or it will, when I can replace the battery.
If you're wondering what I do on here... it's mostly shitposting things I find funny.
Amusing musings, strange shower thoughts I don't have in the shower, attempts at humour that are weird and obscure and lots of obscure pop culture, movie, tv and music references that I spend ages crafting for 2 people to like. 😆
There's #BadPicsOfFood mocking those that let food go cold for a pic.
Estonia wants a #hydrogen#battery#ferry and is looking for a builder:
-Tender open until January 17, 2024
-Expected to start operating October 1, 2026
-Able to be fully autonomous with onboard crew
Ich lese immer wieder von verringerter Akkulaufzeit auf googlefreien Geräten, wenn der Messenger #Signal genutzt wird. Die Push-Benachrichtigung erfolgt dann über eine WebSocket-Verbindung. Diese benötigt aber in der Regel nicht wesentlich mehr Akku als die Variante über die Google Play-Dienste (FCM). Tipp: Deaktiviert einfach die Akkuoptimierung für Signal und beobachtet das Verhalten über einige Tage.
#EV#battery repair is dangerous. Here’s why mechanics want to do it anyway.
Fixing car and #ebike batteries saves money and resources — but challenges are holding back the industry.
by Maddie Stone, Dec 08, 2023
"About three times a day, Rich Benoit gets a call to his auto shop, The Electrified Garage, from the owner of an older Tesla Model S whose car battery has begun to fail. The battery, which used to provide several hundred miles of range, might suddenly only last 50 miles on a single charge. These cars are often out of warranty, and the cost of replacing the battery can exceed $15,000.
"For most products, repair is a more affordable option than replacement. And in theory, lots of these Tesla batteries can be fixed, said Benoit, who runs one of the few Tesla-focused independent repair shops in the United States. But due to the time and training involved, the safety considerations, and the complexity of the repair, Benoit said that the bill to fix one car battery at his shop might run upwards of $10,000 — more than most consumers are willing to pay. Instead, he said, many choose to sell or donate their old vehicle for scrap and buy a brand new Tesla.
“'It’s getting to the point where [the car] is almost like a consumable, like a TV,' Benoit said.
"Benoit’s experience heralds a problem that early adopters of EVs, as well as electric micromobility devices like e-bikes and #escooters, are beginning to face: These vehicles contain big, expensive batteries that will inevitably degrade or stop working over time. Repairing these batteries can have sustainability benefits, saving energy and resources that would otherwise be used to manufacture a new one. That’s particularly important for EVs, which contain very large batteries that must be used for years to offset the carbon emissions associated with making them.
But many EV and e-mobility batteries are difficult to repair by design, and some manufacturers actively discourage the practice, citing safety concerns. The small number of independent mechanics who repair EV or e-bike batteries struggle to do so affordably due to design challenges, safety requirements, and a lack of access to spare parts.
“'There are a lot of automakers who do not allow battery repair, even in case of minor damages to the battery case,' a GDV spokesperson told Grist. Automakers sometimes choose to replace the battery if the car was involved in an accident that caused the airbags to activate. Both practices 'will lead to an increase of repair costs,' and ultimately, higher insurance premiums, the spokesperson said.
"New rules around EV battery repairability would come at a critical time. Helps, of Cox Automotive, said that two trends in EV battery design are occurring in parallel: 'Batteries are either becoming very serviceable, or not serviceable at all.'
"Some, like the batteries inside Volkswagon’s ID.4, feature LEGO-like modules that are easy to remove and replace. Others, like Tesla’s new 4680 structural battery pack, don’t include modules at all. Instead, all of the cells are bonded together and bonded to the pack itself, a design Helps described as 'impossible to service.' If a bad cell group is found, the entire battery must be replaced.
“'It’s still a fully #recyclable battery,' Helps said. 'You’re just not able to repair it.'
"#Tesla didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment."
@Rjdlandscapes I guess the takeaway I got from the full article (not just the excerpts I posted) is that the batteries aren't made to be repaired -- which is ridiculous, but not surprising. I had a friend who gave up her #EVCar because the #battery replacement was more than the value of the car. That's just bad and wrong. Also, #Lithium, #Cobalt and the like need to be recycled if the battery is no longer repairable. Sometimes batteries stop holding charges. It's something we see with household rechargeable batteries, and it's a design flaw that needs to be fixed. As for the dangers of #LithiumBatteries, there have been issues with exploding cars and #ebikes -- just being in storage! So, yes, proper training is required -- just like working on electrical systems or plumbing -- not for the untrained.
The #EU seems to have thrown the UK's #electriccars sector a lifeline with a proposal (responding to representations by industry & UK Govt.) to delay the 10% duty of EV exports to the EU for three (more) years.
Under the post-#brexit trade deal cars with batteries made outside the EU or UK would have had the duty imposed from Jan 1st.
Of course, whether this window will give the sector time to build sufficient UK #battery capacity to then avoid the duty when imposed is another issue!
🆕 blog! “eInk Display for Octopus's Agile Energy Tariff”
I'm a little bit obsessed with building eInk displays. They're pretty cheap second hand. They're low energy, passive displays, with good-enough performance for occasional updates. Here's a new one which shows me what the current cost of my electricity is: Background After installing solar panels, a …