Heat pump households face winter warmth rationing as the drive to net zero raises increasing fears of blackouts.
By the end of next year, electricity suppliers will be able to remotely turn down heat pump central heating to help Britain’s energy system cope with high demand.
Suppliers are expected to do so on the instructions of the quango responsible for coordinating the grid, which is overseen by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
How long before someone starts to use it to punish BadThink?
I think this is through the pumps being connected to Teh Interwebs rather than smart meters.
Nevertheless, what was a conspiracy theory 10 years ago….
A smart meter has an internet connection. That’s what makes it “smart”.
Yes indeed. But in this case heat pump owners can also connect their devices direct to the net. You know all this ‘switch it on before I get home’ tosh.
Lol. I’ve always described home automation as a solution looking for a problem. I can’t see any value in it, just lots of downside.
Some things can be very useful as we age and it’s not all gimmicks. A few of the things I’ve done:
Our stopcock is in a really difficult position and my wife can’t get to it and I don’t know how long before I can’t. I’ve installed a device that can turn it off remotely and at the same time placed a few leak detectors around the house which will turn it off automatically if there’s a flood.
I’ve put one of those LED light strips around the bottom of our bed and use a couple of presence sensors to detect if one of us is moving about at night. I’ve set the light strip to come on at a low red glow which is enough to see walking about but doesn’t disturb the other person sleeping. Trips are a big problem as we get old.
We live in an old bungalow with lots of rooms. I’ve installed a remote controller for the oil boiler that does the heating and hot water. I’ve also installed individual remote thermostatically controlled valves on the radiators that link in to it so now I can quickly change the heating dynamics in the house to suit what we’re doing. If we only achieve half the saving they claim we’ll get payback in 3 or 4 years. We saw benefits in the first few months and then the hot summer set in.
I’ve also got lots of lights controlled remotely and by sensing presence, but they are a bit of a solution looking for a lazy person- No, seriously, it is nice to have lights that can be controlled remotely to come on at certain times of when light levels drop or you enter a room,
A lot of standards have recently been clarified and improved and I think we’ll see smart home technologies being more mainstream. I reckon there will be a cottage industry of people installing it for old people in the same way we have a cottage industry repairing and setting up computers and the like.
We are all liable to be cut off whenever TPTB so desire:
https://customer.nationalgrid.co.uk/advice-and-guidance/rota-load-disconnections.
Enter your postcode here and find out your Block and Code:
https://www.powercut105.com/en/
Yes, but thats how its always been. Not enough power, cut off certain areas. And that concept contains a pretty big incentive for a politician not to have to use it, because everyone in that area gets canned, which is not good for votes, you piss off everyone, your voters included.
If on the other hand you can turn household supply off individually via smart meters, then you can target the cuts at the voters who by and large don’t vote for you. Rural areas, for example, well to do middle class areas. Or you can prioritise supply to the people who do vote for you – the welfare classes for example.
I’m convinced that the current drive by utility companies to get people to register as ‘vulnerable’ customers is to create a database of who gets to keep electric and who doesn’t, come the blackouts. Otherwise whats the point if such a list? If there’s a normal power cut the electric supplier can’t do anything special for you as a ‘vulnerable’ customer, so as things are its pointless. But once the blackouts become a regular thing, knowing who you can and can’t cut off remotely without causing too many bad headlines will be a very useful tool. The last thing the State wants is OAPs freezing to death, not because they care about OAPs, but because it makes the State look bad.
So we all register as “vulnerable” customers. Remember, not all handicaps are visible, and being a bit anxious will do the trick.
I believe we pensioners are already classed as “vulnerable”.
We are indeed. I registered as vulnerable pensioner as soon as I was forced to have a smart meter.
I declined to register myself as “vulnerable” just because I was over 70: I am still capable of sawing up branches for my eco-friendly (we upgraded asap after we moved in) wood-burning stove.
The enviro-loons are coming for our wood-burning stoves…
I know: I read Monbiot’s article that said he was ripped off by a spiv – because he was too idle to collect his own firewood and presumably has no friends; my wife likes to mention (but only if the subject comes up) that we have never bought firewood in the nearly years we have lived here.
I’m far from vulnerable. My reason for registering was a defensive action to mad Ed’s ridiculous energy policy. It should help retain some of the reliability of my supply he is actively destroying.
Yes, over 65? Register as vulnerable. Water, too.
No hosepipe ban in this house. Vulnerable, see. Can’t carry buckets to water those spuds.
From this week’s Speccie:
I’m deaf, and the advantage of registering myself as ‘vulnerable’ with National Grid is that I get text alerts when there is a power cut. Living out in the sticks, it means I don’t have to go walking along the lane to other, distant houses, knocking on doors and having difficult “conversations” using a dictation app in order to work out whether it’s a general power cut or just my house which is affected.
Maybe there is a fiendish ulterior motive, but there is ls a good, genuine reason for it too.
The answer would be to allow anyone, vulnerable or not, to supply their mobile number to get these text alerts. But then the Grid would not get to be able to boast about helping vulnerable customers.
I get text alerts whenever there’s a power cut, and I’m not registered as vulnerable.
You don’t need to go and ask your neighbours any more; when there’s a power cut you go on the electricity company’s website*, put in your postcode, and it tells you whether it’s a general one. Sometimes, if you’re the first, you have to wait a few minutes, but pretty soon enough people will have reported it for them to know how widespread it is.
Once you’ve done that once, and given them your ‘phone number to get updates, in future they text you whenever a general power cut in your area is reported, even before you’ve reported it, give you an estimated time it’ll be fixed, and give updates if that isn’t going to be met. It’s pretty good.
I’m fairly out in the sticks – a mile of telegraph-style wires from any sort of main supply, and that snakes around for another mile to cover half a dozen houses. Things go wrong. But they’re pretty good at sorting it out and keeping us informed in the meantime; pleasantly surprising for a government-regulated industry.
* and if you can’t get a ‘phone signal, then it’s widespread enough to have taken out the nearby masts, which answers your question anyway.
That’s good. I don’t know whether the information was as readily accessible online 15 years ago though, when I first registered as ‘vulnerable’.
Anyway, as Jim and Norman surmise, if we do register as ‘vulnerable’, then it might offer a level of protection when the Burnham blackouts hit this winter (there are a tiny number of us on here who are not yet OAPs).
Maybe. Or maybe it’s intended to generate a list of people easily killed off by cold to solve the problem of the ever growing expense of pensions.
I just looked at Addollff’s first link:
While the winter is expected to be challenging, there is no guarantee emergency measures will be necessary. National Grid ESO’s central view remains that there will be adequate electricity supplies through the winter to ensure Great Britain remains within the reliability standards set by Ofgem.
In other words, blackouts are not inevitable, but only as long as this winter is a ‘central’, median one.That’s an extraordinary admission.
Will they be called the Burnham blackouts? Or will the cheeky little chap get away with blaming Thatcher?
” … drive to net zero raises increasing fears of blackouts …”
So they’re admitting it now? The good news is that it can only affect people dumb enough to have installed one of the damn things.
One does not need to be dumb – anyone whose meter had a “problem” was obliged to have a new meter installed and it was always a “smart meter”. This was not for nefarious control purposes but to save the utility company the cost of a meter-reader.
It was presemted as saving money on meter readers and allowing the punter ‘insights’ into their usage, but the nefarious reasons were never far from the surface.
I meant heat pumps and you can refuse a smart meter AFAIK.
I am never going to buy a heat pump which is sold on a tissue of lies and is least efficient when it is most needed.
I do not recall being given the option except for a money-in-the-slot meter which was (i) insulting (ii) (quite reasonably) significantly more expensive and (iii) could result in burst pipes if we should be away during a cold spell and forgot to fill it to bursting point with coins.
Same here. I ignore my suppliers blandishments.
They’re going to have to prise my dumb meter out of my cold, dead…er..rawl plugs
Our electricity supplier insists we change meter (because the old one is too old) and refuses anything but a smart meter as the replacement. So far we’ve just delayed.
Ignoring such requests has worked for us too, so far…
Yes, me too. Mine is over 40 years old, but I’m ignoring all their requests to replace it.
So far they’re only writing about once every six months, so I’m probably fairly far down their list, but presumably at some point they’ll get more assertive.
Ditto. My supplier (EDF) tried to persuade me that mine was a radio-controlled meter for nighttime rate so it needed replacing before 198kHz was switched off. It took me quite a bit of back & forth with them, including sending a photo of the meter, before they gave up. They then disclaimed responsibility if it stopped working on the switch-off. Of course it didn’t as it has its own clock. It’s an odd device – a standard rotating disc meter with an electronic widget fixed to the front that does the rate switching, with a LCD display to read the consumption for 2 rates plus date & time. The internal clock has drifted several hours over its 40 year life so cheap rate now starts about 7pm…
Eventually you’ll get a letter saying which dates they will be coming and they have a legal right to enter your property to change it.
Same, call every couple of months. Subtly scripted to imply it’s a requirement, instead of a refusable offer.
Just this afternoon – after my previous post – I’ve had a message that they want to change my meter *again*.
I shall ask “Why?”
My old meter was at end of life and had to be replaced, I had no choice in the type of meter.
They keep telling me that, I just ignore them.
I was in New Zealand a few years back and surprised to discover that the Electricity Company that supplies your house can turn off the water heater at will…
So you can have power and heating/cooling but no hot water if they decide it is so.
Yup. Still the same – they say to manage peak demand, reduce demand until cheaper off-peak power available. Not so much no hot water but slightly cooler water…..
FWIW – we have 2 heat pumps – one to pump warm water through pipes in the concrete build pad (and our hot water tank – which gets around the issue above) and the other a ceiling cassette which is an inverter – heats or cools. They are very cost-effective.
Of course, they were designed in house build in 2016, and we have open-plan living areas plus the house is designed for the climate – solar gain in winter, large eaves for summer. NZ has around 85% or more sustainably generated electricity.
Like Scotland, Norway and some of Sweden, NZ has few people and lots of mountains. Hydro is an easy solution for them.
Heat Pumps, EV chargers and Smart meters, all controlled by government.
I suppose next will be water meters connected to the interweb and controlled by OFWAT. (I hope I haven’t just given some lanyard an idea…..).
Don’t have to worry about giving them Ideas, Addolff….
As soon as technology makes something *feasible* , there’ll be a set of Lanyards contemplating how they can use it to give them more control for far less work..
**Note that I use “feasible” here… doesn’t mean it’d be practical, desired by the population, economical, or even legal ( yet….). Probably none of them..
Only if you’re stupid enough to connect your heat pump to the interweb
I’ve no idea but I daresay some require it at setup. Then you go to your proper router – you have one, don’t you? – and flip the software switch to isolate the heat pump from the interweb.
Unless the heat pump has its own cellular connection, that is, which it probably does.
Disconnecting your heat pump unlikely to work. Anyone who has bought an HP printer knows it won’t operate without an internet connection.
I have a HP in a property I bought 3 years ago as s holiday let investment. Switch off the WiFi and the smart meter still feeds data (via a SIM?) to the supplier, but then I can’t control the costly beast remotely.
Wrap the fucker in tinfoil.
This is a totalitarian socialist shithole with added authoritarianism and third-world enshittification.
Fascist, then.
Thats on a good day
Not yet, IMO, but definitely heading that way…
When were you last in one of our larger conurbations?
I avoid “our larger conurbations” and I deplore their “third-world enshittification””. However, while the UK is well on the way to being a “totalitarian socialist shithole with added authoritarianism”, I don’t think we are there yet…
While it might be possible to turn down heat pumps, I doubt it will make much difference. I know one of the advantages of smart meters is they can be used to support dynamic pricing.
If they want/need to cut the power, they will just do it a postcode at a time, Just like South African load shedding. Good old Blighty, sliding inexorably into the third world. How long will it be safe to drink the water?
We should actually welcome this……
Don’t forget that *most* Heat Pumps are installed by those worshipping at the Altar of Gaia , the Believers of EcoBollocks and other assorted Virtue Signallers…
Which means they’re going to get it good and hard *if* this happens.
I take it that it remains the case that Weird Ed hasn’t installed a heat pump at home?
Ed Millionaireband has almost certainly installed solar panels, maybe even a mini-windmill, to take advantage of the hand-outs – so he will be able to power his heat pump from his solar panel.
ISTM that one has less need of a heat pump on a bright sunny day but I am not sure that Physics ‘O’ level is a requirement to read PPE, so that may not have occurred to him. The other possibility is that the nomenklatura are exempted from power cuts.
Allegedly he got an A in Physics A-level.
Obvs the lessons didn’t sink in.
AAB in Physics, Maths and Further Maths (according to the infallible WikiP). I was in the double maths & physics 6th form set, yet I don’t recall any of my fellow students going on to read PPE. But then none of them were Labour hereditary nobility with their name down from birth for a safe seat.
Yup. They are ‘vulnerable’ dontcha know?
Or quite like having air conditioning, like me.
Air-to-Air Heat pump: in winter it heats the interior side of the external wall, in summer it heats the exterior side.
That’s the common type here in SE US. Cooler climes like UK might get by with heater only.
I’ve been telling myself I’ll get air conditioning for years.
I haven’t done it yet!!
That nice Mr. Burnham has announced that he is cancelling VAT on electricity bills. I’m trying to decide how I’m going to spend my 2 pence/day windfall.
Ben Pile on Dailysceptic
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Of Course Heat Pump Use is Going to Be Rationed – What Did You Think a ‘Smart Meter’ was For?
https://archive.ph/RguY7