I'm working on a project for France to rollout virtual power plant flexibility with domestic electric heating. We get pressure to rapidly increase the rollout now. Let me know if you want to join us!
I think your timing is great. Electricity is getting very cheap in Europe sometimes. Being able to hit this "sometimes" as often as possible, combined with reduced grid fees through load throttling, can make heat pumps economical.
If heat pumps become economical, it's a game changer.
* Unfortunatly, to drive the temperature, you need... something to drive it which was not deployed: you cannot plug a NEST and plugin in in a thermostat is complex
* In recent years, DIY based solutions based on Home Automation or Shelly were deployed by DIY communities but hey this require high skills & dedicated server (synology like), and sometime soldering. There is no plug and play solution on the market
* Heatzy.com proposed a wifi based solution but you can only do On/Off, not select a target temperature (so this is useless)
So having a single wifi small box to plug on the heater to drive the target temperature is a game changer
--> Since i'm looking at this market every years since 2013, it has not evolved until this post on hcknews! Very happy to see this solution coming! you made my day! (unfortunatly we're at the end of winter :))
I don't understand why you can't just have some wiki/bluetooth/RF/powerline module that turns your electric heater on and off depending on a signal from some random home automation controller?
"fil pilote" was probably useful in the 90s but it sounds outdated to me.
Hi heyyeah. It sounds interesting. I am now in Bordeaux and looking for software job or freelance missions in energy/environement sectors. Can we talk? My email is on my profile.
This sounds awesome but I'm in the UK - how are you for mostly remote work with the occasional week in office? (I'm a DevOps person if that makes any difference)
Virtual power plants are smart batteries in homes which in aggregate behave as a power plant, taking energy when it isn't in demand and supplying it when it is. It is a very strong contender for replacing gas power plants for peak load situations.
Is it "simply" a cloud-connected pilot wire controller? I don't really see anything about what I understand about virtual power plants.
Also, why is a Linky meter necessary, shouldn't it work with any electricity meter?
On another note I don't understand how pilot wires aren't more widespread outside of France. I bought my radiators in France because I couldn't find here anything that would be easy to control, and anything controllable at all was 5 to 10 times as expensive.
After reading that page in its entirety, I still have no idea what this is.
> Be an architect of the energy transition
OK, what do I do as an architect? If I'm not university trained, do I still qualify?
> A unique Home Energy Management System
What is home energy management? Energy - electricity - comes into my house then straight to the fusebox. From there wires to the lights, the refrigerator, the air conditioner, the water heater. Each of those appliances I turn on when I want. Does energy management mean that this system manages when to turn them on?
If heat pumps become economical, it's a game changer.