Joined up thinking at last on Renewable Energy?

This has the potential to do all sorts of things. The first obvious one is that when we see which devices use a lot of power, we do look for ways to cut our costs. Studies show that there is a considerable reduction of consumption just by having this knowledge. Then come the exciting things.

Fluctuations in demand for electricity are much greater than variations in supply and are the main reason for the large generating backup already provided. The often quoted example is at cup final half time when homes across the country switch on electric kettles at the same time, and electric kettles at 3 KW are very high energy users for short time intervals. Households with smart meters can choose to have their fridges and freezers switched off for these short duration surges to help balance out the demand. Fridges and freezers are only on a part of the time anyway and there could be a lower price for people to opt into this automated system.

Then the even more exciting thing brings us back to electric cars. They don't need a long time to charge. For people not in a hurry, they can be charged up when electricity demand is low, such as at night, or when variable supply is high. Smart meters can go even further. For households who agree (and they can get good compensation for this) the plugged in car batteries can also be used as back up for high demand and low supply times. With millions of cars in this system the variable supply of different forms of renewable energy could cease to be a disadvantage.

This is only the beginning to joined up thinking. An important step, that the government has been resisting, is to make it illegal for suppliers to charge cheaper rates the more energy we use (except in the case of low demand periods as discussed above). If charging rates were level (or stepped up with consumption) poorer households would immediately benefit from lower prices. At the same time large users would have an incentive to look for efficiencies.

A framework from the government which encourages people to pull together in reducing energy consumption, CO2 pollution and our own costs is something long since overdue.