Energex remotely cuts power to 170,000 air conditioners six times in a month

[red750]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-31/energex-ergon-peaksmart-air-con-cuts-during-hot-weather/103385474

 

Queensland's state-owned power grid remotely turned down almost 170,000 air conditioners six times in the past two months as part of a scheme to protect the electricity network. Read more in above link.

 

Did they take into account people who require temperature control due to health conditions? What else can they turn off remotely? Turn off your hot water? Control charging your EV?

[octave]

57 minutes ago, red750 said:

Did they take into account people who require temperature control due to health conditions?

 

I would presume that anyone in this situation would not sign up for this scheme. It does not involve switching off unsuspecting people's aircon.  It pays people up to $400. When the grid is struggling they may have their aircon reduced to up to 50% The goal of this is to prevent more widespread power cuts during peak times.  

 

"Energex and Ergon access air conditioners through PeakSmart meters, which are controlled via power lines, usually in return for access to a cash rebate of up to $400."

 

"The goal of the meters is to reduce pressure on the network at peak times, often on hot days."

 

"The signal tells the air conditioner to drop into an energy efficient mode, similar to an economy setting," an Energy Queensland spokesman said."

 

"On Monday and Saturday last week, Energex used its remote access to limit 169,490 air conditioners to run at 50 per cent power between 4:20pm and 6:50pm across the south-east."

 

"According to the Energex website, a survey of users found 70,000 people using the device did not notice any difference when the the measure was activated."

 

These are not random customers, these are people who sign up and take the money.  I see no problem here, it is not being forced on anyone.

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, red750 said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-31/energex-ergon-peaksmart-air-con-cuts-during-hot-weather/103385474

 

Queensland's state-owned power grid remotely turned down almost 170,000 air conditioners six times in the past two months as part of a scheme to protect the electricity network. Read more in above link.

 

Did they take into account people who require temperature control due to health conditions? What else can they turn off remotely? Turn off your hot water? Control charging your EV?

Point one...

 

The state owned grid operator is Powerlink. They do not operate the off peak switching of anybody's hot water or aircons to.

 

Point 2...

 

The switching only happened to customers who had signed up voluntarily to a cut price off peak deal that clearly identified the reduced electricity cost was due to occassional REDUCTION of their aircon settings. These settings only happened during periods of extreme demand (not all day, etc.)

 

Point 3...

 

Why complain about this? It did not CUT anybody's air conditioner OFF. Further, some users reported they were surprised that their aircons had been switched to "economy" mode so often, because they didn’t  really notice.

[octave]

Also, the idea is that during some peak usage events, some people will voluntarily opt to reduce their power usage to prevent indiscriminate outages that would affect a wide range of people who would suddenly have no power.   

[old man emu]

An air conditioner can only do so much. It all depends on the difference between the outside air temperature and the desired internal air temperature. The wider the disparity, the harder the A/C need to work. The temperatures over the past two months have been up around 38C or higher. Normal desired internal air temperatures are 22 to 24C. So the A/C has to remove over 15 degrees from the incoming air. Note that the "shutdown" time was at the end of the day when the accumulated heat in the air was highest.

 

For ages off-peak hot water systems were switched on and off by some sort of trigger based on  the manipulation either frequency or wavelength which was carried along with the regular flow of electricity. I suppose these PeakSmart devices are a similar type of signal receiver.

[red750]

I only linked/quoted an ABC.net.au/news report. I'm always being told to rely on Aunty, and not the biased commercial networks.

 

If they can switch things on or off, or changee the settings remotely through a smart meter, what else can they control? Is this the thin edge of the wedge? Is this why they want to get you off gas, because they can't control it?

 

I have a smart meter, because I can log onto my power Co website and see how my bill is progressing, something I can't do for my gas cooking and hot water. All this has overtones of big brother.

[old man emu]

13 minutes ago, red750 said:

All this has overtones of big brother.

I'M WATCHING YOU, CITIZEN.

[nomadpete]

10 minutes ago, red750 said:

I only linked/quoted an ABC.net.au/news report. I'm always being told to rely on Aunty, and not the biased commercial networks.

OK, some of us believe ABC sometimes has better, less hysterical reporting than  the commercial news outlets. Historically it has proven so. In some cases such as this, they fall for producing misleading clickbait headlines and poorly researched news.

 

The bottom line is.... before I get excited about a news story, I first like to reread the wording, looking for signs of gaps or assumption. Then I do a quick google of critical parts of the story. That is my BS filter process. It's  annoying and a bit tedious, but it saves me a lot of wasted outrage.

 

Unfortunately, ABC has been  whittled down over recent years. I used to value it greatly because both liberal and labor governments  equally accused them of bias. Which confirmed the results of numerous investigations into alleged political bias - such investigations never found bias in the past.

[old man emu]

10 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

before I get excited about a news story, I first like to reread the wording, looking for signs of gaps or assumption.

I spotted a story that said Trump's wife had filed for divorce. A quick Google search failed to turn up the same story anywhere else. What I had seen originally was truly Fake News.

[nomadpete]

11 hours ago, red750 said:

What else can they turn off remotely? Turn off your hot water? Control charging your EV?

Sorry, Peter, but they already do. And people want them to, so they can get lower electricity bills. None of this happens without your consent.

[facthunter]

ABC often "sources" the MSM and at the moment has quite a few "useless" commentators  THAT ALL sounds like a beat up.   Nev

[spacesailor]

In NZ .

one winter our off-peak " water " & " night- store " heating , was turned off every night

When everything in the house froze solid .

I had to buy " kerosene heaters " two , so you light the next one, before the first runs out of fuel. No burnt fingers. And a 'bottle gas '  cooker for cooking & boiling the kettle .

I will never go single fuel . Again .

Two cars  : petrol & diesel. 

spacesailor

 

 

[pmccarthy]

In Victoria, most EVs are charged over night so they run on brown coal. As the power stations are phased out we will have a crisis of blackouts.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Not to worry.. DA's new SEC will sort it out

[nomadpete]

5 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

In Victoria, most EVs are charged over night so they run on brown coal. As the power stations are phased out we will have a crisis of blackouts.

And all the  whingers will be wishing they could bring back the good old days when the whole electricity system was run by the government and it worked.

 

But they used to whinge about the government running a rolling ten year advance design plan that kept ahead of demand and prevented such collapses. They will have forgotten that they were the ones who used to call that "gold plating the grid".

[octave]

10 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

In Victoria, most EVs are charged over night so they run on brown coal. As the power stations are phased out we will have a crisis of blackouts.

 

I am betting we won't.  

 

In Victoria, the  EV share of the new car market in 2023 was 7.5%   The move away from coal is not particularly fast.

 

The Australian Energy Market Operator stated in its draft 2022 Integrated System Plan for the NEM that it expects the entire fleet to have exited the market completely by 2043.

https://www.leadingedgeenergy.com.au/blog/timeline-for-coal-exit/

 

I would agree that at this stage an EV in Victoria charged overnight is being charged by dirty brown coal.  By contrast in Tasmania, an EV charged at any time is being charged by hydro.   When (if) I replace my car it will be EV and I won't charge it at night but during the day largely with my excess rooftop solar.   This would work for me because I don't have to drive to work during the daylight hours.

 

I do envisage that ways of charging will evolve to suit the situation.  Near me there is an engineering company that has solar panels and 4 EV chargers, I assume for people who work there.  I would also assume that it is probably part of an employment deal.   The same 4 cars are always parked there during business hours. In other countries, employees expect to be able to charge their cars at work.

 

The notion that we will close down all the coal-powered generators and it will go dark every night is a bit over the top.  It is true that at present a weakness of renewables is their intermittent nature.    This is not an insoluble problem.   

 

Some of the contributors to solving this problem.:

 

Smart grid with domestic battery storage.

Large batteries, which are being built at an impressive rate.

Solar thermal generation.

Pumped hydro where possible and other storage means such as gravity batteries and more.

 

 

Big Battery Storage Map of Australia

 

 

 

 

 

Commercial concentrated solar one step closer

 

Whilst this technology is in its infancy in this country, there are many operating power plants around the world

 

List of solar thermal power stations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

On 01/02/2024 at 8:49 AM, old man emu said:

For ages off-peak hot water systems were switched on and off by some sort of trigger based on  the manipulation either frequency or wavelength which was carried along with the regular flow of electricity. I suppose these PeakSmart devices are a similar type of signal receiver.

Back in 1953 Australia adopted Zellweiger power line control to switch customers hot water systems OFF during peak grid power periods. So the authorities have been  controlling stuff for quite a while! Nobody semmed to mind because it cut down their electricity bill (and, like the newer air conditioner controls, it was not compulsory  anyway).

The zellweiger system was crude but effective. We have all heard it from time to time through rattly laminations of ceiling fans, beeping a code to stagger the start and finish time of off peak hot water systems.

Now we have smart meters which can control a lot more loads in the home and it is helping stabilise the grid. Australians have generally had one of the best reliable electricity systems in the world. When I worked in East Timor back in 2000, it was only the Australian  do-gooders who complained about daily power outages. And there were people from 63 different nations there at the time. Aussies take too much for granted.

Edited February 2 by nomadpete
spellchuck

[facthunter]

 What  you HAVE access to should be celebrated.. IF you have HOT running water you are better off than 98% of the world's population so STOP Bloody whingeing. The MORE people get, the more they WANT. (NOT Need).   A week in Lebanon would focus your mind. Nev

[spenaroo]

yeah, Africa was an experience that has helped me with my perspective immensely,

been able to live comfortably and now buy a house where others immediately walk out as it doesn't have their "basics"

 

Personally I would jump on this, happily take cheaper power to shed the air-con in high peak times.
I've lived without one for a long time. and try to use it sparingly or at 24-25 degrees