Wouter,

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006 18:13:27 +0200, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

> > Some people have "night storage" heating to take advantage of 
> > the cheaper off-peak rates, but I was just wondering if 
> > off-peak charging of batteries and using an inverter during 
> > peak hours would be viable?  Initial costs would be pretty 
> > high I guess.
> 
> Reality check: if this were feasible, would you think all other people /
> companies (especially the power companies) would not know this (and
> act)?

Well storing the amount of energy that would be needed at the generating-company level would need a *huge* amount of batteries, and wouldn't be 
feasible because of the scale.  But I'll report back how feasible it is on a one-house scale.
 
> I don't know the English term, but "piek schering" is one of the major
> problems of electric power companies. If you solve this some alternative
> energy sources, particularly wind, suddenly become much more attractive.

Peak spreading?  It's one of the reasons that "Economy 7" was introduced, along with storage heaters (they are heated up during 7 hours overnight 
when there is low demand, and the electricity is charged at a lower rate, and give off the heat through the day).

Some generators (the companies, not the equipment) do some storage of energy when they can - there's a tidal generating site in France which uses 
the tidal flow of water through a dam (in both directions) to generate electricity, and if there is low demand when the tide turns, the turbines are 
electrically driven to push more water in or out, to store the energy for use later.

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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