Uplifting News
Welcome to /c/UpliftingNews, a dedicated space where optimism and positivity converge to bring you the most heartening and inspiring stories from around the world. We strive to curate and share content that lights up your day, invigorates your spirit, and inspires you to spread positivity in your own way. This is a sanctuary for those seeking a break from the incessant negativity often found in today's news cycle. From acts of everyday kindness to large-scale philanthropic efforts, from individual achievements to community triumphs, we bring you news that gives hope, fosters empathy, and strengthens the belief in humanity's capacity for good.
Here in /c/UpliftingNews, we uphold the values of respect, empathy, and inclusivity, fostering a supportive and vibrant community. We encourage you to share your positive news, comment, engage in uplifting conversations, and find solace in the goodness that exists around us. We are more than a news-sharing platform; we are a community built on the power of positivity and the collective desire for a more hopeful world. Remember, your small acts of kindness can be someone else's big ray of hope. Be part of the positivity revolution; share, uplift, inspire!
view the rest of the comments
maybe it is difference in cost of living, or maybe solar output, our monthly consumption in peak summer hits some 1000-1500 units (arbitrary for now), we ourselves do no thave solar (some issues right now, but fixing them) but we in theory can get 100--200 units a day here, more if pick a larger unit, so that is, almost double of our reuirements. In winters, we rarely go over 300 (we do not have centrallised heating, and electricity is used in kitchen, and heating water), with a lowered output energy (lets say 1000 units a month) we would still be thrice over.
Yeah theres a LOT of variables at play here. I saw a headline today that "Uk braces for 30C heatwave." As an Aussie I thought "Thats cute" we regularly see summer days into the mid 40's so you can imagine what our peak daytime drain looks like.
You guys also tend towards way smaller houses than us, significantly higher population density, generally cloudier weather, energy costs will be wildly different... so many variables.
You have to remember that without a battery, your solar generally only helps out 8 hours a day and those are usually the 8 hours when you arent home, and arent the times energy companies charge peak rates...
When my wife and I built our house and sorted our (fucking massive) solar system our consultant said "Smart appliances are your best friend. Load the washer and dryer, set them to turn on at 10am before you leave the house. Set the airconditioning to come on at about 3 in the afternoon so that you not only get home to the AC/Heat but your using energy that would otherwise go back to the grid and then once the sun goes down you're only maintaining temp which is way less energy intensive. Home batteries are still just not cost effective enough yet for us to justify one.
Dont get me wrong, even a small solar system on every house will make a difference. Just maybe not as much as people would like to think. The one benefit of having it be mandatory (and you're right on this one) is that every new house will se set up for it, wired in right and easily upgradable from whatever they make the minimum standard.
Along those lines, I don’t understand why there don’t seem to be thermal storage head units for heat pumps. Cheaper and more effective than batteries, at least for storing heat, plus less noise and expense as the system doesn’t have to come on as often.
Why doesn’t everyone doing solar or with time of use metering have these? Online I only found one example and it was only available in Canada
My parents had thermal storage electrical heat with time of use metering and it made a huge difference on their electrics bill. Seems like it would apply to heat pumps as well
our peak summers reach 55-60 °C, but in uk's case, they have additional issuee of being very humid, in whuich case, the percieved temperature is much higher.
Where i live, we have both options for solar, that is either to use batteries, or int the days, we directly use solar, and send excess back to grid, and consume from grid during nights. This is kinda battery less (you still need some smaller batteries to get consistent power rates, but batter pak size would be smaller.
that just seems to be a lot of power being wasted. but i can understand your point regarding batteries. We mostly use "dumb" appliances (read not iot devices) and mostly just control manually.
I on the other hand am actually not a huge solar fan, but mostly because we are running out of resources, good quality silicon, silver and other value metals, and cost of solar wwould actually start rising. I am more of a nuclear fan, but i undeerstand, that smaller nuclear reactors are still a thing of future, and I also kinda get why people do not like centrralised large reactors. To me, that is still the most efficient way to generate power.
Its not "wasted" financially. I dont know the rates but if 1 unit costs 50c from the grid during the day they will only pay me 10c to feed into the grid, at peak times (evenings) they want $1 from the grid and I cant contribute. If I preheat/cool my house with 5 units of energy I would have only gotten $.50 for and halve my evening usage on maintaining it from say 10 to 5 im up by $4.50
The numbers are bullshit, but you get the idea.
Also down the track a little my wife and I are looking at making one of our cars a phev so we wanted to be able to charge it at home off solar.