At 4:20 AM on the 16th of October, we hit a new record in the NEM!
At that time 8.6% of all electricity being consumed came from Wind generation. That's more than 1.5 GW of power from the Wind, about equivalent to 300,000 homes using electricity on a hot afternoon (A/C on) without any carbon emissions.
Realistically, at 4:20 in the morning, it is more like 750,000 homes using power (about 2kW - off-peak storage hot water heating)
with no carbon emissions. The families in those homes had some of the
cleanest showers in the country on the morning of the 16th!
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Saturday 1 October 2011
By Request....
Since Mistervint was made live, people have pretty consistently asked for a couple of things. Namely:
Drilling down by state is now as simple as clicking on the state you are interested in on the map at the top of the screen. Every state except WA is clickable (WA is not part of the National Electricity Market). QLD has only one wind farm (Windy Hill) but realtime data for it is not available, so Mistervint will show you all of Eastern Australia until data becomes available, or new QLD wind farms are constructed.
You can zoom back out of the drill down by clicking somewhere outside of the map of Australia, or on the Mistervint banner.
Keep those suggestions coming and we'll keep adding features.
- To make "The Trend" graph work on iPad/iPhone
- Drilling down by state
Drilling down by state is now as simple as clicking on the state you are interested in on the map at the top of the screen. Every state except WA is clickable (WA is not part of the National Electricity Market). QLD has only one wind farm (Windy Hill) but realtime data for it is not available, so Mistervint will show you all of Eastern Australia until data becomes available, or new QLD wind farms are constructed.
You can zoom back out of the drill down by clicking somewhere outside of the map of Australia, or on the Mistervint banner.
Keep those suggestions coming and we'll keep adding features.
Monday 19 September 2011
That would be 8.3%
In the small hours of this morning the Eastern Australian electricity grid hit a new record. 8.3% of the total electricity being used in Eastern Australia came from the wind.
We're hitting a record every couple of weeks now that the winter chill is abating and we're getting the beginnings of some spring/summer breezes. I suspect that as the temperatures warm up and the load on the electricity grid from air conditioners being run all night increases, we'll see the records dry up. But I think that we've still got one or two to go before that happens.
Just for the sake of completeness, at the same time 3.9% of all electricity was being generated from Hydro and so 12.2% of all the power being used in the NEM was clean and renewable.
Encouraging stuff!
We're hitting a record every couple of weeks now that the winter chill is abating and we're getting the beginnings of some spring/summer breezes. I suspect that as the temperatures warm up and the load on the electricity grid from air conditioners being run all night increases, we'll see the records dry up. But I think that we've still got one or two to go before that happens.
Just for the sake of completeness, at the same time 3.9% of all electricity was being generated from Hydro and so 12.2% of all the power being used in the NEM was clean and renewable.
Encouraging stuff!
Friday 9 September 2011
What's worth turning off?
One of the pieces of feedback we've been getting since we launched is that people might not know what they should do specifically when renewable generation is low. That is, what should you consider turning off, or leaving off.
That's fair enough, so as a quick way to improve the situation, I found this very useful little widgety thing from GE. It shows how much power (measured in Watts - the units used to measure "right now" electricity use) is used by common appliances in the home.
How much power ("right now" electricity) does each appliance use?
In the link above, the top two rows contain the appliances which you should focus on, and whilst it is U.S. focused, the appliances are all recognisable, and the numbers are all directly applicable in Australia.
The power consumption, or wattage, or "right now" electricity use is important because the data that Mistervint gives you is "right now" electricity generation. The two match up in time. What Mistervint shows you is how much of that right now electricity is renewable. Your appliances use right now electricity to do their thing. You want their thing to be done with as much renewable electricity as possible, and hence you need to know how much of the right now electricity generation is renewable.
The notion of right now electricity can be a little confusing, but just by using Mistervint, you're getting a feel for it. And that's going to be more and more important as we move to a greener and more efficient grid - more on that later though.
Anyway, we'll do some more thinking on how to use this type of visualisation directly in Mistervint. But in the meantime, if you like the widget, or have a question about what it shows, leave a comment.
That's fair enough, so as a quick way to improve the situation, I found this very useful little widgety thing from GE. It shows how much power (measured in Watts - the units used to measure "right now" electricity use) is used by common appliances in the home.
How much power ("right now" electricity) does each appliance use?
In the link above, the top two rows contain the appliances which you should focus on, and whilst it is U.S. focused, the appliances are all recognisable, and the numbers are all directly applicable in Australia.
The power consumption, or wattage, or "right now" electricity use is important because the data that Mistervint gives you is "right now" electricity generation. The two match up in time. What Mistervint shows you is how much of that right now electricity is renewable. Your appliances use right now electricity to do their thing. You want their thing to be done with as much renewable electricity as possible, and hence you need to know how much of the right now electricity generation is renewable.
The notion of right now electricity can be a little confusing, but just by using Mistervint, you're getting a feel for it. And that's going to be more and more important as we move to a greener and more efficient grid - more on that later though.
Anyway, we'll do some more thinking on how to use this type of visualisation directly in Mistervint. But in the meantime, if you like the widget, or have a question about what it shows, leave a comment.
Tuesday 6 September 2011
Another record....
Last night it happened again.....
Although not in a huge way over Saturday's record, at 4:05 this morning, wind generation was providing the NEM with 8.1% of the electricity being used!
Again, we suspect it is because of the mild temperatures and some nicely placed wind, but it is most definitely worth acknowledging.
And just because we can (and you will soon be able to as well), we can tell you that when the record was hit 11.6% of the total electricity being delivered into the NEM was renewable. (That's pretty good). What's better is at lunch time today 13.3% of the wholesale electricity being pumped into the NEM was renewable (Hydro + Wind). And it has been above 10% since lunch time yesterday.
That's an average of 3 GW of capacity being provided by renewable generation. I'll admit I am a nerd for this stuff, but that is pretty exciting. We'll be releasing an updated Mistervint soon that will let you do this kind of analysis soon. I promise to make a noise on the blog when we do.
It looks like we're in for some strong renewable generation over the next 24 hours, so if you have some electricity heavy work that needs doing (an entire weeks worth of washing for example), now is a great time to be doing it!
Although not in a huge way over Saturday's record, at 4:05 this morning, wind generation was providing the NEM with 8.1% of the electricity being used!
Again, we suspect it is because of the mild temperatures and some nicely placed wind, but it is most definitely worth acknowledging.
And just because we can (and you will soon be able to as well), we can tell you that when the record was hit 11.6% of the total electricity being delivered into the NEM was renewable. (That's pretty good). What's better is at lunch time today 13.3% of the wholesale electricity being pumped into the NEM was renewable (Hydro + Wind). And it has been above 10% since lunch time yesterday.
That's an average of 3 GW of capacity being provided by renewable generation. I'll admit I am a nerd for this stuff, but that is pretty exciting. We'll be releasing an updated Mistervint soon that will let you do this kind of analysis soon. I promise to make a noise on the blog when we do.
It looks like we're in for some strong renewable generation over the next 24 hours, so if you have some electricity heavy work that needs doing (an entire weeks worth of washing for example), now is a great time to be doing it!
Monday 5 September 2011
New Record!!
Whilst we were distracted adding new functionality to Mistervint (customisable reporting on any generator, or collection of generators in the NEM anybody?), we hit another record!
At 4:50 AM on the 3rd of September (Saturday morning) wind generation was providing 8% of the total amount of electricity being used in the NEM.
Being very early on a Saturday morning, total demand for electricity was down, and as we have just entered Spring, demand has moderated (less electric heating). So this record wasn't driven by new generators. Instead this record was driven by a fall in total electricity demand, coupled with some nice wind (in the right places).
Regardless, any electricity used in the east of Australia from about 9 o'clock PM on September 2nd till the 2 o'clock PM was more than 6% powered by the wind. With any luck you got a lot of your electricity hungry jobs done on Saturday!
At 4:50 AM on the 3rd of September (Saturday morning) wind generation was providing 8% of the total amount of electricity being used in the NEM.
Being very early on a Saturday morning, total demand for electricity was down, and as we have just entered Spring, demand has moderated (less electric heating). So this record wasn't driven by new generators. Instead this record was driven by a fall in total electricity demand, coupled with some nice wind (in the right places).
Regardless, any electricity used in the east of Australia from about 9 o'clock PM on September 2nd till the 2 o'clock PM was more than 6% powered by the wind. With any luck you got a lot of your electricity hungry jobs done on Saturday!
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Thursday 18 August 2011
New Record! (7.7%)
In the middle of the night, in the early hours of the 17th of August, we hit a new record!
Mistervint calculated that at 3am, the proportion of electricity being delivered to Australia's east coast by the wind hit 7.7%. That is 0.4% more than the previous record, which was set about 5 months ago.
If you want to live through the moment, without having to be awake at 3am on a Wednesday morning, you can do it here: http://mistervint.com/aemo/201108170300. (We suggest dressing in your pyjamas and standing in front of a strong fan blowing from the north).
Doubtlessly this new record came about because of the small but powerful low sitting off Australia's east coast, but also because a couple of new wind farms came online recently. Mistervint tracks new generation coming online in realtime to make sure that it is using the most recent data in its calculations.
Just a thought......we could make Mistervint announce new generators as it sees them generate for the first time. That is a pretty special moment for renewable generation, and it feels like it should be celebrated. What do you think? Leave a comment or email me.
Mistervint calculated that at 3am, the proportion of electricity being delivered to Australia's east coast by the wind hit 7.7%. That is 0.4% more than the previous record, which was set about 5 months ago.
If you want to live through the moment, without having to be awake at 3am on a Wednesday morning, you can do it here: http://mistervint.com/aemo/201108170300. (We suggest dressing in your pyjamas and standing in front of a strong fan blowing from the north).
Doubtlessly this new record came about because of the small but powerful low sitting off Australia's east coast, but also because a couple of new wind farms came online recently. Mistervint tracks new generation coming online in realtime to make sure that it is using the most recent data in its calculations.
Just a thought......we could make Mistervint announce new generators as it sees them generate for the first time. That is a pretty special moment for renewable generation, and it feels like it should be celebrated. What do you think? Leave a comment or email me.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
What is Mistervint?
Mistervint is a tool for understanding how much renewable energy is in the electricity grid right now, so that you can make your electricity use greener!
Mistervint gives you up to the minute information on the electricity grid you get your power from. The information comes from the management systems that run the electricity grid. Mistervint takes that information and makes it easy to understand. By doing this, it helps you decide when to use electricity - when you have a choice.
That isn't all the time. You don't really have a choice when it comes to your fridge being on. Or your electric hot water. But there are times when you do have a choice about when to use your electric kettle, iron, oven, cooktop or other appliance. Mistervint helps you decide when is a good time to use these appliances so that they run as much on renewable energy as possible.
It works like this.
Before you decide to do something that needs an appliance that uses a lot of electricity, check Mistervint to see how much renewable energy is being generated right now. If the meter is in the green section, it means you're going to be getting a good amount. The brighter the green, the more renewable energy available.
If there is a lot of renewable energy being generated, it might be a good time to do other things that also use lots of electricity and don't need your attention. Like putting on the dishwasher, or the washing machine. Or if you're really keen, preheating or precooling your home or office so that you will need to use less electricity later when there might not be as much renewable energy in the grid.
Or, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he's working hard to make your electricity use more green.
The graph gives you some idea of how long a good level of renewable energy will stay in the grid. This is important because some jobs need electricity for a long time. Cooking a roast, or running the tumble dryer are like this. So, it isn't just the amount of renewable energy we need to know, but also how long that renewable energy will stick around.
It's not easy for us to know how much longer the wind will blow and the sun will shine. But we can make a decent guess based upon the trend in the graph and how fast the graph is rising or falling.
Again, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he is out of puff.
That's it! Use Mistervint to help you decide when to use electricity and together we can keep the world cleaner and greener, and show the electricity generators that if they build renewable generation, we will reward them by using their power and not somebody else's.
Mistervint gives you up to the minute information on the electricity grid you get your power from. The information comes from the management systems that run the electricity grid. Mistervint takes that information and makes it easy to understand. By doing this, it helps you decide when to use electricity - when you have a choice.
That isn't all the time. You don't really have a choice when it comes to your fridge being on. Or your electric hot water. But there are times when you do have a choice about when to use your electric kettle, iron, oven, cooktop or other appliance. Mistervint helps you decide when is a good time to use these appliances so that they run as much on renewable energy as possible.
It works like this.
Before you decide to do something that needs an appliance that uses a lot of electricity, check Mistervint to see how much renewable energy is being generated right now. If the meter is in the green section, it means you're going to be getting a good amount. The brighter the green, the more renewable energy available.
If there is a lot of renewable energy being generated, it might be a good time to do other things that also use lots of electricity and don't need your attention. Like putting on the dishwasher, or the washing machine. Or if you're really keen, preheating or precooling your home or office so that you will need to use less electricity later when there might not be as much renewable energy in the grid.
Or, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he's working hard to make your electricity use more green.
The graph gives you some idea of how long a good level of renewable energy will stay in the grid. This is important because some jobs need electricity for a long time. Cooking a roast, or running the tumble dryer are like this. So, it isn't just the amount of renewable energy we need to know, but also how long that renewable energy will stick around.
It's not easy for us to know how much longer the wind will blow and the sun will shine. But we can make a decent guess based upon the trend in the graph and how fast the graph is rising or falling.
Again, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he is out of puff.
That's it! Use Mistervint to help you decide when to use electricity and together we can keep the world cleaner and greener, and show the electricity generators that if they build renewable generation, we will reward them by using their power and not somebody else's.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)