Is the smart grid all hot air?

Re:Is the smart grid all hot air? by jamesvandyne on Sunday July 10, 2022 @08:08AM (#32043947)

At Octopus Energy, I think we’ve made negative prices available to retail customers (at least in the UK, not sure about the other countries we’re retailing in).

People getting paid to charge their cars because the grid has a surplus of (probably green) energy.

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Re:Is the smart grid all hot air? by pydry on Sunday July 10, 2022 @09:22AM (#32044490)

Everybody I know with an electric car has this tarriff.

One of them is trying to install a heat pump too to double down on this approach.

It rarely gets discussed in the media for some reason.

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Re:Is the smart grid all hot air? by CJefferson on Sunday July 10, 2022 @09:44AM (#32044707)

I just want to compliment Octopus Energy, I just tried popping over for a quote, and the website just says "No. You don't want to switch right now". Not sure if this is common with other energy suppliers, but it looks good (I'll remember for when/if I do end up switching next).

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Re:Is the smart grid all hot air? by thorin on Monday July 11, 2022 @04:29AM (#32053615)

This is mandated by OFGEM in the UK now. uSwitch will also give you the current "best deal".

I have done some work with the Octopus systems and they are very new an agile, but don't handle the complexity that the big 6 have put in place over several decades. The overall metering and settlements business in the UK is quite complex especially including legacy gas and elec accounts and meters.

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Re:Is the smart grid all hot air? by jonatron on Sunday July 10, 2022 @08:34AM (#32044124)

The most recent in the UK was 11 June, I can confirm I had a negative rate for a few hours then.

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